Hi sorry it was so long, I got a little despondent, only a couple of reviews of last chapter so I lost motivation! Thanks to those who read.

Chapter eleven

When House walked alone down the corridor that led back to the ward, he had never felt so scared so alone. A small part of him also felt proud! He had been able to support his wife to the last minute before the surgery. He leg was biting. It was going to be a long day; the surgery could take anything from eight to twelve hours. It would depend on how easily the tumor could be dissected. He had always mocked people who hung around the hospital whist their love ones were being operated on, he remembered giving Stacy a hard time about it, he smiled to himself as he recalled her sarcastic "That's right! I'm not leaving until everyone sees me!" coment!

Now here he was early on a Sunday morning wandering along a deserted hospital corridor, he could imagine being anywhere else. He wished Wilson were around.

As he returned to ICU he saw a skinny form waiting outside Dom's room, he smiled as he watched the lanky adolescent try to blend in. He was leaning nonchalantly against the door jam; no one seemed to be taking any notice of him.

"If you are here to check out the hot nurses, you are out of luck, there aren't any!" House said loudly as he went past the nurses' station. Billy stood up to his full height and just gave House a grin. "When did you get taller than me?" House asked amazed the skinny kid in front of him was indeed taller.

"I guess it must be Dom's and Ania's cooking."
"Trouble is you get to my age and go out, not up. What's up?"

"Nothing, I just thought you might like some company." He didn't meet House's eyes. House suspected the boy was as fragile as he was at the moment.

"You hungry?" House asked, Billy gave him a what do you think look. The kid was always hungry "Lets go get breakfast"

Over breakfast House caught up with what was happening in the boys life. Dom was right he was having some problems, and of course it was a girl that was causing them.

"So her brother is warning you off!"

"Yeah his best friend used to date her." He dragged his fingers' through his hair "They are sports jocks, good at all sports but thick as planks."

"How'd you get so close to this girl?"

"She's smart but struggles with math's, I was sitting across from her in class and showed her where she was going wrong. She asked me to tutor her."

"So is this brother older than her?"

"No they are twins, they're both eighteen."

"Usually twins are the same age!" House teased. "So she's an older woman."

"Nearly twelve months, we are the same year though."

"Cause she dumb, or you're smart."

"Definitely cause I'm smart. I'm the youngest in my year!"

"I'm glad you are smart cause I need your help to do some research."

"On what?"

"Mr. Darcy!"

"Who is he?"

"I'm not sure, but Dom thinks he is seriously hot."

"What?" asked the younger man looking at House as though he had lost his mind?

"She said I was in her top three, but when I asked for names, she gave me George Clooney, and Mr. Darcy. The order is alphabetical so Clooney's got me beat, first and last name. I need to know this Darcy guys Christian name."

"You do know she was just kidding around, don't you?" Billy found it amusing that House was so annoyed that Dom had only put him in the top three!

Foreman, Taub and Thirteen were coming into the foyer and heading to the cafeteria. They ordered their food and took a table opposite House and Billy.

"Thirteen, what do you know about Mr. Darcy?" House asked

"Nothing, is he a patient?"

"I hope not!" House bristled at the thought of someone Dom fancied being in the same building!

"Isn't he a character in a movie?" asked Taub

"Fictional, would be good!" House said. His old team was looking at him strangely.

"I don't know that he is fictional," said Taub.

Chase arrived with Wilson, they were discussing blood results, the team had been assembled on a Sunday to help Wilson with a teenager who was having chemo and had started hallucinating.

House joined in their conversation, and gave them several suggestions as to what could be causing his symptoms.

Thirteen got up to go and recheck the blood test for a protein House had told them to look for. She turned to House and Billy.

"I hope all goes well with Dom's surgery, and you find out who Mr. Darcy is!"

"Mr. Darcy as in Pride and Prejudice?" Wilson said jokingly

"I knew I should have asked a real chick!" House said scathingly to Thirteen, and then turned to Wilson "are you sure you're not gay?"

"I remember now it's a movie, I got dragged along to it." Taub chimed in

"Presumably not by your wife." House taunted, Taub looked guilty.

"It's a book, a famous one actually, Mr. Darcy is one of the most romantic characters ever written." Wilson informed them.

"Yeah, yeah" House said impatiently "I need his first name."

"Why? I'm not sure he has one. He is always referred to as Mr. Darcy."

"Sounds like the worlds most boring book" House said scathingly

"Yet you are very very interested in it. Interesting!"

"I need the name of the book, I presume you know it?"

"Tell me why you need to know and I might help!"

House looked uncomfortable, all eyes were on him.

"He already said "as in Pride and Prejudice" that must be the name of the book." Billy pointed out.

House looked fondly at Billy "Must have missed that, lucky I've got you kid, who knows where all this "girl talk" would end." He looked at his watch; Dom had been in surgery a little over an hour. It was going to be a very long day. He took out his wallet and removed a substantial amount of money. He said to Billy "Would you go buy me a copy?"

"Sure my bike is out side and the book shops only a couple of blocks away."

"Make sure it's a nice one, I'll give it to Dom when she wakes up." He said handing the boy the notes. "Thanks Bill."

"How long will Dom be in surgery?" Foreman asked

"Could be any thing from eight to ten hours, but Monroe was only guessing." He rubbed his brow tiredly "I can't bear to even think about them digging around in her head."

The four men looked at House, it was the most vulnerable any of them had ever seen him.

"Monroe is a genius." Chase said kindly. He had missed House the most out of the team, although Thirteen had also missed their weird boss. Chase really enjoyed House's quick wit and humor, but it was more than that; he cared about the man.

"He's good but, but he was very upfront about the risks. I wish in some ways we had taken a couple of weeks to get prepared." He shook his head and shrugged "How the hell do you prepare for this though."

"You did the right thing, House, this tumor is aggressive. Who knows what it would be like in a couple of weeks!" Wilson said comfortingly.

"It wasn't my decision! Monroe made it clear that it had to be Dom's and only Dom's. I don't know whether to be pissed at him or grateful that I had no say in the matter. Dom was very definite and brave till just before they anesthetized her. She looked so frightened."

No one really knew what to say, House just stared into his coffee and rubbed his leg. Thirteen returned with the blood results, the protein House had talked about was in the sample from that morning but not the sample taken the morning before. House decided he would take a look at the seventeen-year-old cancer patient. He asked Taub to come with him; he said Wilson would be too distracting.

"I can hear him "caring" from here." House said as he followed the smaller man out of the cafeteria

Billy Timms returned to find Thirteen, Wilson, Chase and Foreman still sitting drinking coffee.

"House is taking a look at my patient for me." Wilson said to the young man. "He won't be long, come and join us."

The young man poured his self a plastic cup of water and slid in beside Thirteen.

"How did you meet House?" she asked smiling at the lanky adolescent

"He was in the cell across from me in jail" he answered nonchalantly as he accepted some crisps that Wilson had offered him. Wilson was the only one who knew how House and Dom had become the boy's guardian but he knew very little detail, he was as curious as the rest of them.

He continued, "I got to know House a little and Dom visited every Sunday. Our whole block loved it when she visited, she always bought lots of home cooking, even the guards loved her."

"It surprises me that she was allowed to bring in baking!" Foreman said

"It was a low security rehab prison, most of the people were about to be released or had been in too long to manage on the outside. Rumor has it that House was almost beaten to death in the place he was before he was transferred. Dom made a lot of noise to get him shifted. I guess she saved us both really "

"How did you come to be there?" Chase asked

"I guess they just didn't know where to put me! I'd been in a variety of places but I was moved there when I was twelve, it was OK, not scary like the other places."

"I mean what did you do to be incarcerated?" Chase asked.

"I killed my dad, I hit him with a hammer." The adults were all shocked Wilson put his hand on the boys shoulder and asked gently, "How old were you when that happened?"

"Ten, I don't remember much about it really! He came home really high and started beating on my mum, he was a good guy, but the drugs turned him into a monster."

"Did he beat you?" Foreman asked

"Yeah, he blamed me for everything, he didn't usually hit mum, but something he was taking made him really "crazy" the last few months before it happened."

"How did you come to live with Dom and House?"

"House took me under his wing, after the Proff died, the Prof tutored me while I was there he was really sick for most of the time but he taught me a lot, he asked House to look out for me when he died so I guess that is what he did."

"He was a Professor?"

"Yeah he was really smart but kind of evil, but for some reason he wanted me to do well." The young mans eyes glazed with emotion "If Dom and House hadn't worked so hard to get me out I'd have been shifted to a medium security prison when I turned sixteen."

"How long have you been out?" asked Chase

"Three years, I'm on a good behavior bond, if I get into trouble of any kind its straight back to prison." He looked up at the door and smiled as House returned.

"Did you get that book?" House asked as he returned from seeing the patient.

"Sure did, but you are not going to be pleased!"

"Why?"

"The lady that sold me the book is a major Jane Austen fan, that's who wrote the book."

"Yeah yeah! Get to the point!" House said impatiently.

"It seems Mr. Darcy's Christian name is Fitzwilliam."

"Bugger."

"You are taking this way to seriously. Let it go, House."

"I'm good at that." House mocked

"She was just kidding around."

"Yeah yeah" House replied as they wandered off together.

"I have no idea what that was all about?" Chase said to the others.

"I think maybe Dom gave them a puzzle to keep the occupied while she was in surgery." Thirteen suggested.

"I hope it goes well, I don't know how House will cope if he looses her." Wilson added.

"It doesn't bear thinking about, he has coped pretty well so far, remember how he was when Cuddy got sick. At least he has been supporting Dom. He is here at least." Foreman said

"He really seems to love that boy, doesn't he? I guess he has a lot of people depending on him now. I just hope he is up to it!" Wilson said worriedly

"He has come a long way, you can tell he loves his wife. I don't think he will let her down." Chase said loyally.

They all got up and wandered back to diagnostic's to see if House had given Taub any more insight into their case.

The day passed painfully slowly and in the early evening House was sitting alone by the entrance to the operating theatres, he had bid his mother-in-law, Billy and his children goodbye, just after they had lunched together in the nearby park. Billy had wanted to stay, but House thought that Ania could do with his help and his company until Dom was out of surgery and they knew more.

Ten hours after House had let go of his wife's hand, a weary looked Gabe Monroe came out and sat beside him.

"The surgery went relatively well," he said in his strongly accented Irish brogue.

"Relatively?" House's heart hit his boots.

"We were able to remove the tumor intact, in fact the extraction was perfect, I was able to dissect the whole thing with relative ease." He paused, House knew there was bad news to come "It was when we were closing she had an unexpected bleed. I had to clamp the vessel to repair it. This is not ideal when operating on the brain."

"How long was it clamped" House asked his voice barely audible

"Three and a half minutes."

"So there is a chance she has brain damage?"

"She could have, we won't know until she wakes. She could have memory loss, or loss of movement somewhere, or she could be fine."

"Can I see her?"

"She is in recovery at the moment, we will be keeping her very heavily sedated for the next twelve hours. This surgery is very painful and in view of the hemorrhage we want to keep her as calm as possible."

Less than an hour later House stood beside the bed of his wife. Her nose and lips were swollen; she had a nasogastric tube out of her nose. She was breathing on her own, but she was unnervingly still. Her stats were good and the tumor was gone. House let himself hope for the best. For the first time in his life he wished he wasn't an atheist!

If you are reading, please let me know and I'll get on with the next chapter (I hate to leave House like this!)