A/N: I apologize for the delay and for the shortness of this update. At least it gets you something up. Work has been totally crazy lately, and there have also been several things going on with Mom. Not all negative, but life's just nuts. I've also got two musical commitments this month, one tomorrow and one on the 29th, that have been taking a lot of what spare time I could scratch up to prepare for. More ASAP, but here's a very brief chapter.

(H/C)

House hurried through the doors of PPTH. He had made the best time he could driving here, and as he crossed the nearly deserted lobby and hit the elevator button, he longed for the old days when he could have bolted up the stairs. He would have beaten the elevator, too, even though it answered the call promptly at this hour.

Not that this was that urgent. He had the answer that counted after all; the diagnosis was known. But all the unknowns still gnawed at him, and there was, after all, no better time to ensure privacy while he dissected Kutner's laptop than to do it at o-dark-thirty.

He knew he hadn't had enough sleep to catch up, but he had had enough to keep going on for now, and the adrenaline was helping, too. Good thing he had taken just the very cut dose of the sleeping pill last night, but he only bumped it up on nights with a known crisis these days. Jensen said they would be cutting it to prn soon, another sign of progress that House had simply made a snarky response to while privately savoring.

The elevator opened. He had requested Kutner's floor first, and he limped to his room in the ICU, hoping the parents were asleep. He scored one and a half out of two; the adoptive mother was totally out, looking like she'd resisted it until she had no choice. The father was dozing. House tried to limp softly across the floor to the bed, but the click of his third leg roused Mr. Kutner, and he opened his eyes, looking first to his son, then spotting the new arrival. "Dr. House? Is anything wrong?" He looked at his watch.

"Nothing new. Just dropping by to check on him." House studied his fellow. Kutner was looking much better on the hydration front. His skin tone had improved a lot, and the urine in the bag was closer to normal both in quantity and in color. Fever coming down though still present. The treatment was working. "Has he woken up yet even briefly?" If he had, House would take time out from his laptop quest to fillet a nurse. They had strict orders to contact him as soon as that happened, no matter the time.

"No." The man sounded more worried again. House wished he had the final answer that would reassure both of them.

"He probably will before much longer, even if it's just for a minute here and there at first. He'll be very weak, and he'll probably fade back into sleep quickly. Encephalitis takes it out of you, and he's still running a fever, even if it's lower. He's winning against the disease, but it's a fight. He might even be disoriented at first and then improve over the first day or two."

"So we won't know how . . . how much damage there is for a while yet?"

House met his eyes squarely. "No. We need to let him get to baseline before we can test him enough to find out what the new baseline is, if it's different." Hitting the limit on this conversation, he reached out to grab Kutner's wrist and check his pulse manually, then turned away. "The nurses are supposed to call me as soon as he wakes up. I'll be around the hospital."

"Thank you, Dr. House." The man sounded grateful, even though House hadn't been able to give him any kind of final answer at all here. The vigil in the ICU would continue.

House limped back to the elevator and glanced at his watch, and his cane froze on its journey toward the call button. He was wearing his grandfather's watch, the old heirloom, having picked it up as he was dressing in the dark in a hurry. It shouldn't be here. It was his home watch, his personal watch, and it had never yet made the journey to PPTH in the two months House had had it.

He started to unbuckle it, then stopped. No, the pale strip along his wrist would draw even more attention if he went watchless. He had already picked up enough increasing sunlight this year as winter lost its grip to make the contrast apparent. No big deal, after all. Many people had multiple watches, and nobody noticing the change was likely to think anything of it. Except Foreman, who was gone, and Kutner, who was out of commission, and Taub, who could at least keep his mouth shut. Maybe House could even use this as a subtle test, see if one of the egglings noticed he had changed and then if they had the sense not to ask, and he could wither them if they did ask and see who couldn't take it. After all, the dividing wall in his life couldn't be kept up permanently.

He just wished that it could. With a sigh, he resumed his cane punch of the elevator call button.

His office was dark and comforting in its familiarity. He left the lights off and hurried across to his desk. Kutner's laptop was extracted from a drawer, and House switched it on. He had to borrow the plug from the laptop he usually used at work first, remembering that he had run the annoying thing clear down yesterday trying password after password.

Enough trying; time for some success. Even if his first guess was wrong, he was sure now that he had guessed the theme, and there were limited possible combinations. The computer finished booting and brought up the blinking password spot. House typed.

The Man. Kutner's tag for him in his cell phone, much to House's surprise.

The wheel of electronic thought spun as that was digested, and then, like the cave of Ali Baba, the doors opened, revealing the secrets within. House let out a soft sigh of satisfaction and started digging.