Finally! An update! I'd like to thank everyone who reviews this! It makes me so happy to know that people like and enjoy my work. Because, be honest, any one who writes purely for themselves, can't be that great a writer. We write and expect to receive validation and encouragement from others, so thank you so much for that! I hope this chapter doesn't sound too redundant. I've been sick recently and I wrote this while I was running a fever, so I hope it's not too disjointed! Hee hee. Thanks! And love to everyone!

Disclaimer: House is mine!...well, season 2 on DVD is….

Chapter Six

He leaned on his cane, head rolled forward. To anyone outside it would have looked like he was gazing down at the man who slept below him in the bed, but his eyes were closed. House wasn't watching because he couldn't watch. A feeling unlike anything he had ever experienced before cut through his breast making his throat close over and his heart pound in his ears.

"Jimmy," He so rarely used this shortened form of the other man's name, and when he did it was never said with such tenderness but rather with mocking spite. "I don't know what to do."

Do what you always do. Work your "voodoo", House. You can do it for anyone else, can't you do it for your best friend?

He looked down at Wilson again and tried to shove the nagging voice away from the front of his brain. It didn't work. The small voice kept yelling at him. Wilson was sick, why wasn't he doing anything.

He needed a whiteboard and a maker….well, he had one of those things, in his coat pocket. He pulled it out and glanced around the room. Cuddy would murder him if he wrote on the walls.

You could just go back to your office.

"Now, I know you're a stupid voice." He whispered aloud. He didn't want to finish that sentence and say that he didn't want to leave Wilson.

The glass wall would do perfectly fine.

He didn't even bother to draw the blinds.

In large block letters he began printing Wilson's symptoms.

COUGH

PLEURITIC CHEST PAIN

TACHYCARDIA

TACHYPNEA

Four symptoms and already his hands were shaking violently. There written out on the glass wall were the things that could end Wilson's life. And there were still many more to write.

THROMBOCYTOPENIA

Severely low number of platelets.

LEUKOCYTOSIS

Elevation of the white blood cell count

PETECHIAE

Red spots on lower extremities that were a result of the low platelet count.

How was he expected to keep writing out these words? Cold, scientific, Latin words that didn't describe the danger to Wilson. Dispassionate words. Empty words. Meaningless words. Had there been a word for pain that went deep enough he would have written it. Had there been a word for fear that described what he was going through, he would have written it.

But all he had were these medical terms.

So he kept writing.

His hand shook even more, so his clear, block letters seemed comically childish.

BUN 86

Blood Urea Nitrogen 66 points above normal

ELEVATED PT

Elevated clotting time.

DISSEMINATED INTRAVASCULAR COAGULATION

Systematic clotting of the blood.

The marker finally fell away from his hand. He couldn't do it anymore. He couldn't help Wilson.

The room suddenly seemed so small, as if those white walls were closing in around him. The disinfected smell made his throat close over and his heart race as if he were the one suffering from tachycardia.

He had to get out.

The words peered down at him, each one several large, red eyes, challenging him.

Figure it out, Gregory.

Solve the puzzle, Gregory.

Put it together, Gregory.

He had to get out.

He did.

He moved as quickly as he could away from Wilson lying in the bed and out into the hall, but even that seemed to confining. The roof. He had to get to the roof and get away from everything.

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

Wilson

Words are written on the wall.

Blurry shapes that come to me from a different world. They mean things I can't quite remember.

Letters shift and change under my vision. Like red blood they spread and then again are pulled together. They spell one word.

Death.

Writing on the glass.

Everything is spelled out there for the world to see.

But I am alone.

How can it be that any stranger walking by could read (in reverse) what is wrong with me. Maybe one of them sees beyond that. I'd think that she's young, too young to realize what all the medical words mean. In fact, she's too young to read at all, she thinks they're pictures. She wanders by and stops to look at them for a moment. I don't know why she'd be here. I hate to think of anyone else's tragedy but my own. But as this strange girl gazes she sees beyond the words that label me as an invalid, that condemn my existence to sickness. And she sees me. Her eyes are soft blue and she presses her nose to the glass right between the "C" and the "O" of coagulation. There, framed by those two letters, like oversized red glasses perched on her nose, she looks at me. She sees that I'm alone. He's gone. And I have no one. I've torn myself away from everyone else to be with him, and now, he too has abandoned me.

I don't know why I find comfort in the image of this girl looking in at me. Maybe because it makes me think that I'm not alone. That if she would stop and look for long enough she'd be inclined to walk in. She wouldn't see the word "death" that seems to be written on my wall. She'd only see me, sad and alone.

But she's not real.

The only real person who should have given a damn about me was House. And he'd run away. I'd watched him go.

He's weak.

In everyway.

Physically…

Emotionally…

House is weak.

And I need him not to be. I need him, for once, to be the one that picks me up when I fall and hold me close when I cry. But he's running out the door.

I'm weak.

Condemned by my sickness. I'm labeled as an invalid. Ancient times would have said that my own sin brought this illness down upon me. Maybe it was my own sin, if there is a God in heaven he's using me to get to House. To give House one swift kick in the ass. What a God.

Or maybe, this is to show me something. Something about him. Something that I was too blind to see before.

House is weak.

But I'd known that.

No, not on the same level that I know it now. I'd always known his physical weaknesses. His crippling. And to some extent, I'd known the emotional ones. He couldn't love, couldn't let anyone, except me, into his life. But I thought that if I ever really need him, he might be there.

He was for a little bit.

Remember.

He cared for you.

Up until I was as physically weak as he was.

Oh, physician, cure yourself.

Because those who should, can't.

And those who can, won't.

Am I left to be strong enough for House and myself again?

I can't die. He'll blame himself.

Rightfully so, it would be his fault.

I can die. I won't live like this. I won't simply be a list of condemnations on a glass wall. I won't be as weak as he is. Not physically. Not emotionally. I refuse to do that.

House is weak.

I can't be weak as well.

I have to fight it.

Or I have to give in to the words on the glass.

I have to pick up the pieces.

Or I have to shatter what is already broken.

I won't linger, like he does.

I won't live in pain, like he does.

Those things aren't a sign of strength. It's weakness. Pure weakness. He simply won't give in to the words of his own that are written on the glass wall. He's covered his wall and allowed everyone walking by to see it.

I won't.

One of us has to be stronger than that.

One of us has to be unafraid.

One of us has to be the one to save the other.

And I know that my weakness would only cause him more suffering, so I have to save him.

I have to save House, as usual.

I'll be the strong one.

I'll be the one to keep him safe and as far from pain as is possible.

I'll be the one to let go.

Because he's not strong enough to carry me.

And I can't carry him anymore.

I'm done picking up the pieces.

I'm done.

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

House

I looked down at the dark New Jersey night. I placed my I-pod on shuffle, but I wasn't really listening to the music. I was just trying to forget about him. But I couldn't ever truly get him out of my mind. I didn't know why. I felt like I'd made a mistake.

I don't need to fight…

To prove I'm right…

I don't need to be forgiven…

The song lyrics were some sort of odd motto for me. I didn't need to be forgiven...so why do I feel so guilty? I hadn't done anything wrong. But still the gnawing feeling that I'd run out on Wilson was thick within me. Why did I feel that way? That I'd left him to suffer alone, with no answers.

Because Wilson had never left me alone in pain. Never.

I don't need to be forgiven…

Yes…I do…