A/N: Sorry for the delay. Last week was a nonstop crisis, actually multiple crises. One of those where I wished I had time to watch Arsenic and Old Lace during it just to see somebody having a more stressful day. Arsenic and Old Lace is my favorite movie for that purpose. Cary Grant at his best.

The circumstances of Jet's injury are, unfortunately, drawn from real life, although I bumped the cost up to adjust to the times, as the original happened decades ago. But all the medical detail is what I saw then as Mom took over that cat. That cat turned out perfectly fine in the end, not even a limp.

Here's a very short update. Will try for more before the end of the week. The egglings return next chapter. The situation with Mom is not stable and can jump into life at any time; chapters will come as I can.

(H/C)

Scott Davis, physical therapist, arrived on time Monday morning, looking forward to his day as usual. He enjoyed his work, encouraging people, helping them, seeing progress. His father had been a basketball coach before he retired, and the two of them sometimes at family gatherings compared similarities and differences of the two professions.

His first scheduled patient this morning was a man rehabbing after knee surgery and nearing the end of his course. He would be discharged soon. Eyeing the notes from last session, Davis entered the waiting room near the physical therapy department. "Bill, how are things . . ."

House stood. "Not Bill. Get your eyes checked."

Davis looked around as if Bill might be hiding behind the diagnostician. The other patients watched them, and his second scheduled patient, Aiden, a business-minded man recovering from a stroke, still totally mentally there in his uncooperative body, smiled with the respectful admiration of someone appreciating a nicely constructed deal. Davis sighed. "All right, House, what did you do with Bill?"

"He decided it was worth $50 to reschedule his appointment."

"You can't pay my patients to go away, House. He needed that session."

Davis' third patient of the morning spoke up, sounding annoyed. "I accepted his offer before Bill did, but he wouldn't take it."

House shrugged. "You were the third appointment. I needed the first. I'm a busy man. As for Bill, post ACL. Looking good. I checked him out briefly. He'll be leaving you soon anyway."

Davis yielded for the moment; no point in having this debate in front of the whole waiting room. Besides, he was starting to get curious. Why was House here? He hadn't seen House, at least as a patient, in well over a year. "Come on," he said. He led the way not toward the large room of equipment but to a small side office, PPTH's nod to his own space for initial consults and private conversations.

House limped after him with the satisfied attitude of the victor, and Davis automatically started assessing his gait, listening to the footfalls, watching the rhythm and the biomechanics.

He knew House quite well by this point as a patient, and his opinion of him had done a complete 180-degree turnaround. House had taken an extended course of PT after getting together with Cuddy, working specifically on his thigh. His sprained ankle and then post car accident rehab had also been incorporated along the way, but the initial purpose had been improving his leg, and it was his leg that had kept him coming even after the other obstacles had been conquered. All in all, he had spent over a year working with Davis, and his diligence and effort had earned the therapist's admiration quickly.

Unfortunately, Davis, like the rest of the medical profession, was limited by what he had to work with. Full recovery to pre-event life was not possible for all patients and never would be, no matter how hard they tried at it. House's leg was missing significant major muscle, and that would never be changed. The pain also was an issue, pain that was not merely the protest of neighboring muscles as they tried to improve in a course of rehab.

House had plateaued on the work with the thigh, some gained but nowhere near recovery. Things had stayed there for some weeks, Davis progressively more resigned but still trying. Then House had taken matters into his own hands, deciding to push himself through the roadblock, tripling all exercises and thereby, of course, increasing the pain and inflammation as the muscles were asked for more than they had. Davis tried to reason with him, and finally, the day House had collapsed into unwilling tears of pain during his session, Davis had told him flatly that he didn't think more improvement of the leg through PT was possible and that in fact House was undoing progress now. House had hauled himself back up to his feet, forced to accept the other man's help in standing, and then limped out of the department. Davis hadn't seen him professionally since.

Now, here he was, bribing another patient for the first appointment.

Davis reached his small cubicle - it hardly merited the term office - and took a seat behind the correspondingly small desk, waving House to a chair in front. Again, he watched clinically as the other man sat down. "What's going on, House?" he asked.

House gritted his teeth as he faced him; Davis saw his jaw tighten up. Obviously, he hated this. Yet he was here. "I was in an explosion two months ago," he said, then paused, waiting to see if Davis knew the media details. If so, repeating them would be a waste of time.

Davis nodded. "I'd heard about that on the news." He'd also seen House's painful movement when he returned to work and had seen it slowly improve. "Broken ribs, right? Plus the general explosion insult musculoskeletally?"

"Yes." House paused, then amended it reluctantly. "There was also a specific strain to the leg. Not just the general explosion. I . . . had somebody else land on top of me as we were knocked flat, and he impacted that side."

Davis flinched. "How is the healing going?"

"You tell me," House challenged.

Davis was assisted here by knowing his baseline so well. "You're still favoring your leg a little more than you were prior to that. You're also still slighly stiff along the left side, guarding there. Not like it hurts but like you think it might if you went too far. You aren't trusting your body yet as much as you were before. Left ribs?" House nodded once. "Two months isn't a lot of time for recovery from a generalized trauma like that. You're no doubt partly deconditioned from when the ribs and leg were acutely healing. In fact, they're probably still healing. I wouldn't expect baseline yet, not just two months out."

"I know that, idiot. But some therapy might help, too.

Davis saw the tension in him and suddenly recognized it from countless other patients. Fear. House was afraid of losing even what he had. "We can start some generalized strengthening exercises if you want." He stood up and walked over to him. "Would you mind taking off your shirt?"

House removed it, and Davis examined his upper body, testing resistance and range of motion a few times . He took a few minutes on the left side. "Have you actually had a followup x-ray to check healing on the ribs?"

"Yes," House snapped. He was much more uncomfortable now with Davis' hands on him, something that Davis had noticed in their earlier course as well. "Cuddy wouldn't have let me skip that. Had an x-ray last week; they're practically healed."

"Almost." Davis felt along that side again. House's guarding defined "practically" pretty well for him. Yes, they were healing nicely, but they weren't totally letting themselves be ignored yet. "You have lost some muscle tone on the upper body, which is expected. We should be able to help with that, but it's going to be going gently. Pain tells you to back off a little."

He knelt to switch attention to the leg, and House's relief was almost visible as he realized that he wasn't going to be asked to remove his pants. Davis examined the extremity, testing a very limited range of motion, not trying to push for more than the leg wanted right now. Even so, he could tell it ramped up the pain levels. He switched to the left leg, going over it, comparing. Finally, he returned to his desk, giving House the distance again. "I can help you some," he said. "We can probably get back to baseline before the explosion."

He left it there, but the followup to that statement hung almost written in the air between them. House's jaw tightened again. "Okay," he said finally. He started to replace his shirt.

"You've still been keeping up a few exercises on your own, haven't you? I mean before the race track accident."

"Yeah." House didn't elaborate.

Davis started to make a note, then realized that it was Bill's paperwork in front of him. House grinned, the tension released a little, and Davis pulled out a blank piece of paper from the desk drawer. "Mornings good for you?"

"First thing."

"Okay. We'll start tomorrow. I really do need to see these other patients right now." House accepted it. Davis figured he probably had diagnosed everybody there while he was waiting. Davis made his final notes. "By the way, have you heard the news?"

He left it dangling deliberately, and House took the bait. He was incapable of not taking the bait, which Davis knew. "What news?"

"Ian MacDonald is going to be coming to the US. He's moving to a practice in Philly this summer."

House tightened up again, but Davis saw the spark of interest. He left it alone, knowing better to push further. Ian MacDonald was one of the best respected pain management specialists in the world. Davis changed the subject. "All right, House. I'll see you in the mornings, work permitting. I know an urgent patient might interfere at times."

"Haven't got a patient right now," House said regretfully. He stood. "By the way, speaking of patients, I told Bill you'd be glad to see him on your lunch hour today." Davis sighed again. "Won't hurt you to skip a meal. You could stand to lose about 10 pounds." He turned and limped out of the room.