Sorry for the long delay! But here's the update! I'll try to update faster but my life is just a little too insane. I'm already halfway through writing chapter ten tho, so it SHOULD be faster. I'll shut up and let you read! Love to all!

Chapter Nine

Don't breathe too deep…

Don't listen to the thud of your own heart…

Don't hear the lack of Wilson's…

"Get a crash cart!" House screamed, yanking the door open for a nurse who had heard the screech of the heart monitor from the other room and come running.

Dropping his cane, he yanked down the sheet and tore open the front of Wilson's hospital gown. It horrified him even more to look down and not see the flutter of breath rising and falling in his best friend's chest.

His best friend…

What had friendship meant if it had been so easily cast aside because of Wilson's own fears? Wasn't friendship defined by loyalty, devotion, and care? Wilson had shown him none of those things today. How could he continue to think of him as his best friend… or even as a friend?

How could he treat him as a doctor when mere moments before his anger screamed for the man's death.

The nurse reappeared with a crash cart and two other nurses in toe. House grabbed the defibrillating paddles from her hands, and waited impatiently as she applied gel to both sides. He slammed them down on Wilson's chest. "Clear!"

The man's body lurched from the jolt of electricity, but there was no change, not even a blip on the monitor.

"Clear!"

Nothing.

House thought his own heart must have stopped beating as well, but the only reason he knew it hadn't, was because he could still hear his pulse pounding in his ears. He heard it over the high, wailing note of the heart monitor. It sounded almost like an anguished scream. A scream that House felt bubbling towards his own lips.

"Clear!"

Cuddy

I saw them go flying, like deer away from a gunshot. But, unlike the animals they seemed to emulate, they didn't scatter, but all headed towards a single destination.

I didn't realize that my hand was gripping the counter until I felt one of my fingernails snap. I realized I'd have to call my manicurist and get it fixed before the nail chipped even further. The fact that something as trivial as this registered with me kicked me back to reality.

I knew that room too well to have to even check the patient list to find the name of its occupant.

The blinds had been pulled shut over the windows, standard procedure to make sure that no one watched from the other side, especially the family, it was better that they didn't see as doctors wrestled with death.

I should have stayed outside those blinds. Wilson was my head of oncology, sure, but more than that, he was my friend, and my confidant. He was the only one who understood House, and therefore, the only one I could turn to when I had a "House-problem"…and I had those quite often. I should have been his friend and stayed on the other side of the glass, left only to worry.

I wasn't his doctor, but when I entered the room I took on the task. I was forced to put aside my thoughts of him as friend, my feelings for him as colleague and he was just another name on just another chart, just another life that I fought to save.

I was locked in the struggle, grabbling with the demon—death. We had medical terms for it, cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, but they all came down to the same thing, an end of life, an emptiness we couldn't control. As doctors, we were constantly caught in this battle with it, and we knew that we could never ultimately win. We fought our entire lives to beat back death, but any victory was only temporary, because, in the end, death would be the victor. Even in our own lives, we too would fall susceptible to old age, and then be exterminated by death. Sometimes I wondered what we were fighting for. Sometimes I wanted to give up fighting.

And yet, I stood, and I watched as death snaked its icy hands around Wilson's throat drawing him to its breast. I could hear its laughter in the scream of the flat line of the heart monitor.

We'd lost.

"Clear!"

House was still fighting. He stabbed at death with every fiber within him, clawing desperately to grab Wilson back.

It was too late.

He had to give up.

"Clear! Charging! Clear!"

Tears landed with every word, his tears, my tears, what difference did it make? Death had won, but House didn't see that yet.

"House."

"Clear!"

"House!"

"Clear!"

"HOUSE!"

He looked up finally, his blue eyes red from tears, the paddles still clenched in his hands.

"It's over." I whispered.

"No."

"House, it's over. He's gone."

"NO!" He threw the paddles back towards the nurse, who by some miracle, managed to catch them.

"I'm sorry."

"No, the last thing I ever said to him was that I hated him."

"I'm sorry."

"THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH! DAMMIT!" He turned and pounded his hands into Wilson's chest, as if manual CPR would be good enough where electronic resuscitation had failed.

"House, please, listen to me! Let him go!" I couldn't stand to have him fight anymore; it was only tearing me apart to watch it. "He's gone! You can't change it! You can't fix it! You lost. We lost. You didn't figure it out in time. And now, he's gone! You can't change that."

"We had time! He ended it! He wouldn't give me the chance! He wouldn't give me the time."

I didn't understand.

"James." House wailed, his scream joining that of the heart monitor.

I reached over to unplug the machine; I couldn't stand to listen to that noise anymore.

My hand grasped the cord, and there was a beep.

Everyone froze.

Another.

Another.

Slow and irregular it began but slowly grew.

Never has there been a more welcome sound.

House

Never had there been a more welcome sound. For whole moments I was alone in the world. I had no one. He was gone, lying there, under my hands, dead. And I hadn't been able to do anything about it. I hadn't been able to stop him. I had failed, and I had no one to turn to. Those were the longest, worst moments of my entire life. I never want that. I could never face that.

I sobbed and leaned my head against his shoulder, my ear against his heart. I was in the way of the nurses who were trying to work, but I didn't care, I couldn't move. I was mesmerized by the sound of his heart.

He was alive. I was alive.

And I wasn't alone.

"James. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I whispered. "I never meant to leave you so alone because you had to watch out for me. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I didn't even quite realize what I was saying. I couldn't hear myself speak because my words were muffled into his shoulder. "Don't leave me. God, please, don't leave me. I need you. I love you. James."

I felt a hand reach up and press against the back of my head.

His hand.

He was alive and so, I was alive, because without him, I was nothing.

But suddenly, I drew back; he had left me, cared nothing for me.

I pulled back is if burned.

No…It couldn't be…

I hated him.