Hi everyone!

Just to apologise for the lateness of this - RL has been

a bit hectic lately with idiot men and work and my little

car practically exploding, so my apologies! Anyway,

hope you enjoy! :D xxx

'The broken locks were a warning… you got inside my head.

I tried my best to be guarded…I'm an open book instead.

And I still see your reflection, inside of my eyes.

That are looking for purpose…

They're still looking for life.

I'm falling apart… I'm barely breathing.

With a broken heart, that's still beating.

In the pain, is there healing?

In your name, I find meaning.

So, I'm holding on… I'm holding on.

I'm holding on… I'm barely holding on to you.'

{Lifehouse: Broken}

'I didn't mean to hurt you,' whispered Wilson eventually, utterly humiliated and unable to bring himself to look up to House despite the fact that he was practically lying in the crook of his best friend's arm, cringing horribly every time he so much as glanced at House's surely hurting thigh, the pain there undoubtedly caused by him and him alone this time.

God… he couldn't get his head round what had just happened. There was no excuse.

He felt sick.

'I know you didn't. So don't you dare apologize,' replied House swiftly, hoping that was enough as he felt what might have been a small nod from Wilson, he wasn't sure.

Neither of them were sure of anything anymore, least of all what exactly the boundaries of their friendship were here given that they'd more than blurred in the past two days.

One thing House was vaguely certain of, however, was the fact that Wilson probably felt no better despite him telling the over-caring idiot he clearly wasn't to blame. The startlingly clear indication that the Oncologist was on the verge of a mental breakdown thanks to a random stranger taking it upon himself to violate him via such cruel means wasn't going to change the fact that Wilson, at the heart of him, simply cared too much about others. None more so than House, as had been proven time and time again over the years.

And it was only about thirty seconds later that House's suspicions came to fruition, the tremor that clawed through Wilson's voice so unnecessarily shame-ridden that House had to wonder, and not for the first time, the likelihood of this whole nightmare being just that – a stupid, brutal nightmare that he'd soon awaken from, back into the real world, back into a world of stupid patients, flapping Ducklings, a nagging Cuddy… back into a world with a strong, decidedly happy Wilson who offered House some level of peace in the serene office next door, that expression of resigned affection always lingering on his face in some form or other as he looked up from his laborious note-taking.

And then House remembered that, actually, he wasn't that lucky. He'd never been lucky.

Because, actually, life was a total bitch that tore your best friends down in a chilling instant to discard them and leave them like… well, like this.

Shattered into a million pieces that he wasn't sure he could pick up and ever put back together again.

'I thought-' began Wilson hesitantly, his voice breaking with the wave of terror that engulfed him before he tried to carry on, ashamed and frightened in equal measure, 'I thought.. I thought you… God, it's stupid-'

'You thought I was him,' finished House quietly, knowing full well he was stating the obvious but finding his heart sinking even further anyway when he felt the expected sensation of Wilson nodding again, a small nod that lasted barely more than a second before Wilson was moving his hands in that all too familiar, almost child-like gesture to hide his face from his best friend, like that could blot out life at its crappy present, the trembling that ran the length of his entire body giving away anyway the fear that held him as completely captive as his embarrassment.

'I'm losing it, House,' came the choked utterance from the muffled depths of Wilson's hands, the terrified words tumbling messily from his lips into the warm darkness in a hopeless plea for the Diagnostician to prevent the inevitable, to do the impossible, to do something, 'I'm losing it and I can't stop it and he's… he's here, all the time, everywhere, and I can't… I can't do it, do this, anymore. I can't. I just… can't.'

House swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. What the fuck was he meant to say to that? Wilson had already agreed to go to the Police, sure, but that wasn't going to miraculously erase the memory was it? It wasn't going to erase the sound, the smell, the feel of Wilson's life being so sordidly turned on its head… it wasn't going to suddenly make everything better. In fact, for a short time after going through every painstaking detail, after reliving so vividly the lowest point in his life, it would probably make things a whole lot worse.

It wasn't often he was lost for words, but right now, with his best friend lying in tattered shreds besides him, House had no words of comfort that could even come close to alleviating the helplessness that had overwhelmed Wilson so ruthlessly.

He had nothing.

And it appeared that Wilson knew this too, if him untangling himself from House a couple of silent minutes later to determinedly push himself away and sit tiredly on the edge of the bed was anything to go by, his voice barely more than a jaded sigh when he spoke to the floor.

'Where's Cuddy?'

'Work,' answered House quietly to Wilson's slumped back, heaving himself up to limp around to the other side of the bed and sit down next to him, 'She wanted to see you but you were asleep, so she dropped off our breakfast and some groceries, then left to get to PPTH for about eleven. You've been asleep most of the day, so I ate your Big Mac. And your chicken nuggets. Sorry.'

He'd actually offered Wilson's Hazelnut Latte to Cuddy once they'd established that Wilson wasn't waking up any time soon, so it wasn't like he'd snaffled all of Wilson's breakfast in its entirety. Not that Wilson needed to know that.

'Like hell you are,' mumbled Wilson fondly, reveling in the small laugh that escaped him then at this flash of total normality that lay in the opportunistic greediness of his friend, flashing a smirking House a brief semblance of a smile before looking down to stare at the floor again, distant once more.

'And she's dropped the samples off with the Police,' remembered House, scrabbling frantically round his unusually clueless mind for something, anything, to say, anything to keep the conversation going, 'She went with the kit yesterday sometime… didn't give your name or anything. It's all anonymous.'

Wilson did nothing but nod to that, quite clearly in a different place entirely despite physically only being a few inches from House.

And yet he may as well have been on a different planet.

The heavy silence that engulfed them then was, to a flummoxed House anyway, nothing short of frustrating. Wilson had been an open book to him for as long as he could remember, always wearing his heart on his sleeve even when he tried not to. Nothing ever got past House, not for long anyway, and yet now his best friend was totally isolated from him. It was almost frightening how closed of Wilson was, that sense of… safety? Familiarity? Well, whatever it was that Wilson gave House, whatever combination of all things good that provided the steadfast grounding that acted in perfect counterbalance to House's whirlwind of crazy genius, it had just slipped away so damn suddenly. Too quickly for either of them to acclimatize to. Too quickly for either of them to realize that that hypothetical doorway that linked them, that doorway that had always remained open no matter how many times either man tried to close it, was slowly swinging shut from Wilson's side, set in motion by the revolting stranger who'd crept in a through a window Wilson didn't even know existed to so casually tip that door on its way to totally shutting out his unsuspecting best friend.

Too quickly for either of them to catch it before it slammed shut in House's face with a resounding crash, leaving them both stunned, lonely and with no apparent way back in for the Diagnostician.

And he didn't like it. Not one bit. Oh, House knew he moaned about Wilson more than he raved, of course he did, that was his right, his obligation, as Wilson's best friend. As was the tendency to take the Oncologist for granted.

And it was becoming clear now, with the sudden loss of a fully functioning Wilson, that House really hadn't appreciated what they'd had until it had been so heartlessly stolen from them.

'What are you thinking about?' asked House eventually, hating that intrusive question even as he spoke it, hating this rollercoaster of emotions as much as Wilson did as he watched the stress playing out across Wilson's face, his jaw tensed as he worried his bottom lip with his teeth, all the while playing idly with his hands as he focused his gaze on the carpet.

'Oh, you know… the usual. Work. The team. But, well… I guess my patients, mostly,' he sighed sadly, running his hand through his uncharacteristically unkempt locks where it came to rest at the base of his neck in that pensive stance that gave away every time just how little Wilson was coping, eyes closed now and his voice thick with emotion when he uttered his next admission:

'I don't want to hand them over to McNeil or Johnston or anyone else, House. I'm their Oncologist. Me. I shouldn't have to! There my patients, my patients who have turned to me all these years, my patients who still rely on me to help them through every step of the way, my patients who want me to hold their hand when their time comes, who want me to tell them everything will be okay, who want me to be there for their families when they're gone. Their mine, and they shouldn't have to suffer any more than they are already just 'cause I'm too.. too damned weak to get a grip and just pull myself together.'

And there it was.

Guilt.

It was an emotion that James Wilson just wouldn't be James Wilson without remembered House wearily.

'You were raped less than forty-eight hours ago, Wilson,' he pointed out softly, the grimace he felt cross his own face at the very mention of the atrocity reflected wholly in the nauseated expression that now clouded Wilson's, 'And if any one of them knew that, I don't think a single one of your patients would expect you back at work bright and early Monday morning. Most of them are dying, yes. That doesn't make them heartless.'

'It's not like I'm dying though, is it?' whispered Wilson shakily, taking a deep, shuddered breath that was only just managing to hold him together on the surface. Inside, he'd already fallen apart, numb now from the pain that seemed hell bent on eating him from the inside out.

'Aren't you?'

If the sadness that permeated that loaded question didn't fully illustrate House's feelings for his best friend, then the profound grief that swam in the depths of those fearful, wide blue eyes as Wilson looked up to them in surprised response surely did; House's next brutally honest questioning catching him totally off guard.

'Do you honestly think that your quality of life, right now, is better than your patients'? Is life, at the moment, really worth wading through all this shit for? 'Cause from where I'm sitting, Wilson, it doesn't fucking look, or feel, like it.'

Wilson would have laughed in disbelief at the innate wrongness of that insensitive statement had it not struck home to hurt so damn much. As it was, it was a typically honest observation from his best friend that, as usual, was spot on in accuracy, and mercilessly so.

'You know, you can be a real bastard sometimes,' whispered Wilson as he stared in disbelief at House, his already shining eyes filling once more before he furiously looked away, furious mostly with himself and hating the man next to him for doing what he did best in just cutting through the crap to get to the heart of the matter, hating him for having the balls to just say, with almost unfeeling objectivity, what was what.

But most of all, above all else, he hated him for always, always being right.

'Yeah, well… one of us has to be,' muttered House sadly as he got up to leave him be and limp towards the door, knowing quite well that Wilson wouldn't be back at work anytime soon, no matter how guilty he felt. He simply wasn't capable – how could he be, after what had happened? How could he give his all into enabling a patient to have a high a quality of life as possible when his own quality of life lay in mental tatters? It just wasn't going to happen, and House could only hope that Wilson would forgive him in the end for the cold, harsh dose of reality that he'd just dumped on his head in typical House fashion.

House was almost at the doorway when he stopped, struck suddenly by a fleeting thought.

'Do you want jelly on your peanut butter sandwich?'

Wilson didn't answer for a disconcerted moment, his face incredulous when he finally looked up to House with a longsuffering sigh.

'What?'

'I said,' repeated House slowly, his tone deliberately patronizing, 'Do. You. Want. Jelly. On. Your-'

'No – no, I don't want anything,' interrupted Wilson quickly, not giving a flying fuck about something as mundane as bloody food as he scrubbed at his reddened eyes with the heels of his hands, 'M'fine. I'm not hungry.'

'Jelly it is then,' decided House, really not giving a crap whether Wilson was hungry or not as he made to head into the hallway again. The man needed to eat, that was all there was to it. Even House wasn't so selfish that he'd let his best friend, the same man who'd admittedly fed him for donkey's years, waste away while he dealt with this shit. Least he could do was feed him.

And it was something to do, something he could actually do to begin to remedy this situation, to get in motion the process of helping Wilson to get back on his feet again, even if the fact was that this was little more than an offering of a band aid to cover a gaping, bleeding wound right through the heart of his best friend.

'House.'

If it wasn't for the pissed tone of Wilson's voice growling, almost hissing, his name at his back, House would have carried on walking then instead of stopping once more with a tired roll of his eyes as he turned around yet again.

'What?'

'I said I'm fine,' repeated Wilson quietly, his heat hammering in his chest despite the words that had just left his mouth as he silently dared his best friend to contradict him, defiant brown eyes boring fearfully into equally troubled blue ones.

It didn't take a genius to comprehend that this battle of wills wasn't being fought over something so trivial as a sandwich.

'You've eaten nothing since yesterday morning,' pointed out House, his tone unusually gentle given how acutely aware he was of the control issue that had arisen here over something as seemingly little as food, 'and I know you're not hungry, but you need to eat, Wilson. Last time I checked it was a necessity of that thing we humans call life, in case you've forgotten. And you've got meds to take. If you think you're puking them all over my bed 'cause you took them on an empty stomach, you can think again.'

Wilson said nothing to that, the glare he was directing at House intensifying briefly before he turned away again with an irritated shake of his head. Somehow, despite being able to think of nothing but the repulsive man who'd violated him that night, despite feeling continually nauseous with the myriad of vicious infections that could be festering within him right now, Wilson had managed to completely and utterly forget about his meds.

The most conspicuous depiction of this whole sorry affair, the little three times daily reminder that, actually, he was going to feel like utter shit for the next few weeks, and he'd totally sidetracked those damn pills.

Great.

Just fucking great.

'Look,' offered House after a minute or so, feeling suddenly, inexplicably sorry for the sullen man slumped before him, 'You know Cuddy's taken the samples to the Police. Somehow – call it female intuition or just plain common sense – she didn't think you'd feel up to chatting to them over coffee today, or anytime soon. So just… just leave calling them for now and come through here for something to eat already. Please, Wilson.'

Maybe it was the fractional turn of Wilson's head as he eventually turned slightly towards House, maybe it was the small intake of breath, House couldn't be sure, but something let him know that Wilson was relenting here, like he always did in the end whenever they clashed over something, and he couldn't help but pounce on his friend's penchant for conceding to his will with a fact that would surely bring Wilson round.

It had to, because otherwise House was stumped as to what to do next.

'We've got Oreos in.'

Wilson did look up to him then, clearly resigned to the fact that his best friend, as per usual, was not going to stop hassling him until he'd at the very least compromised with House on his latest request. And touched as Wilson was by House's stocking up of their mutually sentimental snack, he'd just never imagined the day that the Diagnostician's request, instead of persuading him to partake in playing some immature prank on Cuddy, would instead be a genuinely reasonable request for him to eat something past the nausea that had plagued him constantly for near on forty-eight hours now, nausea that plagued him for one reason and one reason only.

To say he was a bit thrown with this turn of events, with this role-reversal of the enabler becoming the needy one and vice-versa, would be an understatement.

Because Wilson, undeniably, was totally lost.

As was House, apparently, as he scraped the barrel in a last ditch effort to transfer Wilson from his bedroom to the living room.

'And I'll make coffee-'

'Oh, God – you know what? Fine,' conceded Wilson finally, cutting House's wheedling off and simultaneously throwing his arms up as he pushed himself up from the bed to practically march past House and out the door into the hallway, taking some small comfort from the genuine smile he could feel boring into his back as he called back to House, 'but I'll do the coffee while you find the Oreos. You couldn't make a decent cup if your life depended on it and I feel crap enough as it is.'

House wasn't stupid, he knew full well that that little performance was just that, and nothing more than an attempt on Wilson's behalf to quell House's pleas before they turned into full on, shameless begging. Wilson was still well and truly fucked up, there was no doubt about that.

And yet House couldn't suppress the grin that lingered as he limped from his bedroom to follow Wilson to the kitchen, a grin that was there purely for the reason that maybe, just maybe, Wilson would be alright in the end. And how did he know that?

Because that 'little performance', perhaps without Wilson consciously realizing it, had just enabled House to get his own way once more.

Like he always had done, and, hopefully, like he always would do.

After all, sayings were sayings for a reason – and House was pretty sure that the only way really was up once you'd hit rock bottom.