Hi, all! Please don't shoot me for the long delay. Your encouragements [and death threats] have helped me keep going through this section, which for some reason, I had a really hard time writing and keeping straight in my head. [*snerk* Yeah, like anything about this fic is straight.] Um, anywho... Here is the next chapter, and I'm really sorry it took so long, and I hope you all enjoy it.

Previous chapter summary: House informed Wilson that he intends to stop taking Vicodin. In fact, he had already stopped taking it the day before and the withdrawal was starting by the time he told Wilson. A little bit later, Wilson more or less badgered House into revealing a snippet of what happened when he was twelve. In the process, House punched him. Then they went to breakfast, and then to the hospital where Cuddy informed House that he had not only been fired, but that his license had been revoked. It sort of shocked him more than anyone expected.

Olivia stopped Wilson's pacing by stepping in front of him and grabbing him by the shoulders. "James, it was a misunderstanding."

"No," Wilson argued on auto-pilot. Inside, he was pretty much a double-blended, hot mocha mess, and Olivia had insisted about four times so far that Wilson had just misunderstood. He was awfully close to being insulted over her estimation of his ability to understand his own damn friend; the delay in blowing up probably had something to do with the fact that House wasn't actually within Wilson's field of view, and he was worried sick even though he knew someone was sitting with House, that he wasn't alone in the exam room at the end of this little-used corridor in the farthest reaches of the emergency department. "No, he said – "

"All he said was that he no longer has the means to – "

"I know what he said!" Wilson rounded on her and she backed up with a hand held out to hush him. If anything, that calming gesture and patronization inherent in it merely served to incense Wilson further. "You don't know him! I do! I know what he meant!" They were nowhere near the clinic or nosy staff members who may have meant well between their bouts of judgmental, buttinski gossiping. Otherwise, Wilson would have planted himself in a chair and just stopped moving, lest he draw attention to anything at all. In this near-vacant hallway outside an exam room that never saw use nowadays, it was safe for him to let a few cracks show, right?

Wilson realized that he had been staring at Olivia for a solid minute, manic eyes and everything, awaiting some sort of denial from her that Wilson knew House as well as he thought he did. The intensity of the moment crashed down on Wilson and he skittered back from her before he whirled off grab his own elbows and stared unseeing out the rain-streaked window. No use intimidating his own therapist.

Olivia inhaled a long breath to reinforce her forced patience. "He's detoxing, James. It's natural for even the most well-adjusted, accidental drug addict to suffer a fit of depression while experiencing withdrawal – it's the body's way of registering a sudden drop in endorphins. For House, who has pretty much been depressed his entire life, a little ideation in response to the shock of realizing that his old life is gone… I'll just say that this is not a surprise. I don't believe he's actually, actively suicidal; if he were, I doubt he would have told you. What he said… It was a shock, James – a gut reaction. The news about his license fell on top of everything else that he's been dealing with for almost two months straight, without a proper support system – "

Wilson bristled. "I've been right here – "

"No," Olivia countered gently. "You haven't."

Wilson pressed his lips together and told himself that his nose was stuffing on account of the weather. It was wet and miserable outside, and the chill of his own body pointed to a touch of the common cold.

"I see you already realize that," Olivia observed, but her voice carried and unusual – for her – note of sympathy.

Wilson looked down at his shoes as he listened to her continue speaking, but he wasn't paying any more attention than he had to. After she had blathered on for a few sentences, none of which he processed beyond the understanding that she spoke English, Wilson murmured, "I'm not sure I can go through this with him." He meant the depression more than the detox, though both left him equally terrified. He could only barely handle his own depression.

Olivia stopped, and for a moment, Wilson thought she had left, perhaps in disgust at his transparent desire to abandon his best friend now. The rain pattering against the window obscured the silence, and it was only Olivia's reflection in the glass that alerted him to her sudden proximity. Her hand slipped over his shoulder and Wilson fought the impulse to step aside, out from under it.

"I need him…" Wilson whispered, half to himself; Olivia's being there to overhear was incidental. "I need what he was before this, before we were this." Wilson made a two-fingered gesture without letting go of his elbow, meant to sum up their physical relationship, the obscene add-on to a friendship that had once been nearly perfect in its simple ability to endure despite the blatant dysfunction and how often they hurt each other by it. "It's all crap now, Olivia. Ever since this turned into a relationship, it's like we're balancing on a knife edge. We destroyed the whole thing when we started sleeping together. I can't…untangle…" He made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat, then exclaimed, "We weren't made for this shit. It's too intense. There's no buffer anymore, and I can't live this."

"What you're feeling right now is normal," Olivia explained. "You're overwhelmed – both of you – by the aftereffects of a very traumatic event, one that neither of you has faced the repercussions of. You're both confused and hurting, and you'll continue to feel that way until you both address whatever it is that the shooting stirred up for you. And as if that weren't enough to deal with, you have ongoing legal issues, an unresolved criminal investigation, House's medical issues… James, if you weren't freaking out right now, I'd be concerned for your sanity. As it is, I only see two deeply emotional men who have repressed things for so long that they have no idea how to handle themselves when they can't hide anymore. And I'm not talking about latent homosexual tendencies. I'm talking about plain old feelings – reactions to real life. Dying patients, absentee parents, loss of friends and family, disillusionment with your careers, a lack of a sense of fairness, perhaps feelings of futility…your depression and House's pain… You have literally been smacked upside the head with real life, and it sucks. There's no structure to it, no rhyme or reason for a lot of it, no meaning…"

Wilson snorted, or tried to; no levity made it out. "Meaning. House once tried to find meaning to his life by taking on a patient who didn't need anything except palliative care – a vegetable. And then he ended up curing the guy of undiagnosed Addison's on a stupid whim, with no evidence whatsoever, and the guy woke up like Lazarus. Nobody except House would have looked twice at that guy. I look at that, and I see something like fate. House said once that he's the end of the line for a patient – they only come to him after everyone else fails. He's like…like a fulcrum."

Olivia's eyebrows drew together. "What, like an instrument of god? Isn't that a little melodramatic?"

"Well, yeah, but…" Wilson huffed. "House has epiphanies for no good reason. He looks at pencil shavings and sees Buerger's disease. Tell me that's not divine intervention."

Tentatively, Olivia agreed, "It could be, from a certain mindset."

Wilson nodded, his hands held out to cup the air in front of him, as if holding onto that notion. "He finds meaning in every case he handles, whether he saves the patient or not, and he can't even recognize it. That Addison's guy should still be a vegetable – if he had gone to any other hospital, if House had been in just a little bit of a snit, or less cheerful about running eight miles, or less sweaty, he never would have gotten his hands on that patient's file. He doesn't even visit his own patients most of the time, and yet he was in that man's room at just the right time to hear him grunt. Everyone else saw a compressed diaphragm and an involuntary sound; House saw a long-shot miracle in a guy who was basically pronounced brain-dead minus one degree. I think about that, and I'm…in awe. There is no way that man found his way to the only doctor who could see far enough to cure him by coincidence. But House looks at that and sees nothing. He sees just…I don't know. Pointlessness." Wilson shook his head with a self-depreciative snort, manic in his quest to find the irony funny enough to laugh at. "And you know, I think he's right. There is no meaning, Olivia. There are chance encounters and coincidences, but no meaning."

Olivia pressed her tongue into her cheek and let her hand slip from his shoulder so that she could turn to peer out the window too. "Is this the same patient you lied to him about in a bid to teach him humility?"

Wilson blinked and glanced at her reflection before shifting his feet to relieve the discomfort of standing in place for too long.

"I'm sure that finding out that his two friends tricked him in what he considered a cruel manner detracted from any meaning he may have otherwise taken from the incident. You called him Icarus."

"How did you know about that?"

"House doesn't realize how much he lets slip when he's busy ranting, especially over the phone with no one looking at him or interrupting. And he did find a meaning in that, just not the one either of you had hoped he would find."

Wilson fought the urge to snarl at his own reflection. "Just say it. I reinforced his maxim: everybody lies, and trust is for idiots."

"More like trust is a weakness, and it hurts to look for anything beyond the surface. The price of finding meaning isn't worth it. But that's an old hurt, James – for both of you. House already carried it with him when the Addison's patient came through." Olivia slid her feet around and leaned her back against the window, arms crossed over her chest, facing Wilson. Wilson, for his part, refused to acknowledge her. "You both like to torture yourselves with old scars, because at least those are familiar pains. It's an evasion tactic." She gave a nonchalant shrug, breaking eye contact. "A good one, at that; it's served you both so well."

Wilson glared past his reflection and darkly muttered, "I'm not evading anything."

"Cow pies. Start dealing with the present, James; the issues you have now are the ones most likely to ruin you both – not the laundry list of grievances you've been accumulating against each other for fifteen years. Some things really are best left forgotten for now. What happened today – what's been happening since the shooting – that's the issue now – that's what's tearing you both into pieces. And it's nothing to feel guilty about. You haven't been ignoring him or letting him fall apart. You didn't miss any warning signs; he knows you, he knows what you're likely to notice, and what he let you see weren't things that you would ever recognize as tells. There was nothing you could have done to prevent this. You're both like freight trains headed for the sheer face of a mountain; eventually, you're both going to crash. Spectacularly, I might add."

Wilson scoffed, aware of the lump forming near his larynx.

Olivia went on as if he had asked her to explain, which sort of annoyed him; he didn't really care for her psycho-babble right now, not while House sat in a hospital bed down the hall, half-broken. "You both witnessed something tragic, and House was better equipped to deal with it at first. He's a first responder. When the ambulance comes in, he's all action, and the shakes don't hit until after the dust settles. You're the opposite – you start feeling the second the gurney rolls through the door. It's why you're a good oncologist but crappy in a pinch."

"Thanks," Wilson snapped. "I feel better now."

"I'm not insulting you," Olivia placated. "Just offering an observation. This shooting threw you off. You didn't react at all, you didn't feel, and that's not like you. The second it went down, you went numb, and House has been shielding you ever since. He knows you're in a bad spot, and unfortunately, it's taken its toll on him. Plus, he said you had some sort of argument last night, and a worse one this morning. He mentioned his parents, said he even punched you." Her finger traced the mark on his jaw without actually touching it, but Wilson flinched anyway and she dropped her hand. "From his refusal to even tell me the subject you fought over, I'm guessing it was ugly. I'm guessing he told you about the summer he locked himself in his room. James, what happened in Doctor Cuddy's office is all just fall out. House is fine. He's shaken, sick, and hurting right now, but the whole time I was in there with him, all he kept asking was whether or not you were okay, and whether or not you had someone with you. He's terrified that you would take what he said literally – like this – instead of as…" She shook her head, groping for words. "I don't know, as an illustration of how he was feeling. You already know he has trouble articulating his emotions. Add to that the row this morning, and the shock in Cuddy's office, and he simply didn't have the wherewithal to come up with a better way of saying it. James, look at me." She snapped her fingers in front of his nose, and Wilson only glanced at her for the sake of glaring. "House is not thinking of killing himself. I promise you, he wouldn't dare."

Without thinking, Wilson replied, "You're an idiot. How can you promise – "

"Because in his mind, your life is more important to him than his own." Olivia straightened against the window, no longer letting it support her weight, her voice sharpening with her posture. "And so is your death. He told me what you said to him, about the morphine and what you would do if he died. James, he's terrified of the possibility of leaving you to kill yourself. You don't seem to understand what hearing that did to him. You basically told him point blank that he is more important than you are."

"But he doesn't even believe that."

"No. He believes that you believe that, and that if he ever died, even by accident, he would in effect be murdering you." Olivia gave him a bare moment to digest that, to picture it in some way in his mind, and then she said, "James, you are his one most important person. You. And that gave him something he never had before. I don't know exactly what it is, and I'm sure he couldn't even begin to explain it himself, but that means something to him. He told me just now that he decided to stop taking the Vicodin because he wants to know what it would feel like to be the person you seem to already think he is. Do you understand the enormity of something like that, of how much it matters what you think of him?"

Wilson started and then turned to stare at her. He heard dream-John's voice taunting him beneath an acrylic, finger-painted sky. Because it matters what you think of him. "I told him he couldn't – "

" – do the detox for your sake. Yes, I know. And he's not. Wanting to be your idealized version of himself, that's not for you. It's for him. He can be somebody as long as he's being it for you, somebody other than the great Doctor House. Up until this morning, he thought that maybe it would be enough – that as long as you needed just him, it would be okay."

Wilson tried to look out the window, and then off to the left so that he didn't have to see the recrimination that he could hear in Olivia's voice. "But being a doctor is…there is no 'just' him."

Olivia hesitated a moment, then said, "You actually think that, don't you." She sounded disappointed, as if she'd expected more of him.

Wilson didn't need her to tell him how unreasonable he was being. Defensive, he declared, "He defines himself the same way."

"So you think less of him now that he's lost his license to practice?"

"No!" Wilson glanced up, unable to explain why hearing her accuse him of that actually hurt. In a softer tone, Wilson added, "I don't think that being a doctor is all he's good for. It's just…that's what he is. He couldn't stop being Doctor House if he tried; he loves it too much."

Olivia sagged back against the window again and re-crossed her arms. "Ah." A few seconds passed in relative silence, and then she asked, "Do you want to know what else he told me just now?"

"No," Wilson replied thickly. "Not really."

Olivia didn't oblige him. "He's sitting in there right now convinced that he was wrong to think that he could ever be anything else. When people seek him out, they're only looking for the Great Doctor. The man never actually mattered."

"He's depressed because of the withdrawal. It's magnifying – "

"Yes, it is," Olivia interrupted. "That doesn't make him wrong to think it, seeing as how you're out here feeling sorry for yourself when he needs you in there." She jabbed a finger past his shoulder, pointing at the exam room down the hall. "He said the only reason you won't come in is because he's pathetic when he's just plain Greg the junkie."

Wilson winced.

"And you know what? He doesn't even blame you for thinking that; he is pathetic like this, and he knows it. That doesn't make him repulsive."

"I helped make him a junkie," Wilson whispered. "I did this to him."

Olivia's arm drifted back to her side. "That's what this is? Guilt?" She studied him with far more sympathy than she had shown so far. "James, you are not responsible for putting him at the edge of a breakdown, or for getting him fired, or for bankrupting him. But if you stand out here feeling sorry for yourself for much longer, then you will be responsible for that last second when he finally just gives up. If he can't matter to you, then he can't matter at all. That's what he thinks, James – no one else has ever looked at him the way you do. Maybe you don't want the man without the doctor, but at least you see the man."

"It's not that," Wilson croaked.

Olivia acknowledged the words with a nod, but pursed her lips, her eyes sad. She didn't need to drive the point any further home; she had already impaled him on it. "He's been there for you, more than you seem to realize, for a lot longer than you've been fucking him."

Wilson cringed at the bluntness, but didn't look at her.

"This isn't supposed to easy," Olivia told him. "It's supposed to tear you apart inside; that's how you know it matters." Olivia raised an imploring hand, palm up, and extended it toward the door far away down the hallway where House sat feeling like shit in more ways than one. "You want meaning? You've already got it, James. Stand back and look at the damn forest for once in your life. It isn't always about you and your guilt, or what you may or may not have done to contribute to the crap around you. You are not god. House got himself into this mess – he knows that. The fact that you went with him doesn't change anything, but you owe it to him to follow him back out."

Wilson glanced up, shaking his head, but he still answered, "I know."

Olivia regarded him sadly. "No, I don't think you do. But you will." She nodded at the hallway behind him. "You don't have to say or do the right thing – there is no right thing. Just go to him."

* * *

Wilson didn't go to House's room right away; he avoided it and shuffled about the hallways with no real goal in mind until he passed a vending machine. His gaze snagged on the last pack of Skittles and he stopped to stare at it, recalling the rest area on the interstate and the weight of House's arm draped over his shoulders in a mockery of affection crafted to disguise just how genuine the gesture was. Wilson didn't realize he had raised his arm until he felt the glass squeak under his fingers. He started, shook himself and then took out his wallet, sifting through receipts to find a dollar bill. He found one, but rather than slip it free, he stared past it at the rectangle of paper bearing House's prescription cure for melancholia. He had been taking it out several times a day to look at it because it still made him smile in a way that ached deep down inside. It was a tangible bit of proof that House cared, as if Wilson needed yet another one. A reminder.

After a moment spent gazing into his billfold, Wilson shut it and returned it to his pocket without removing the dollar bill. He didn't feel like Skittles right now.

A few more minutes of wandering found him outside the gift shop, watching a clerk clean up in preparation to close for the evening. Wilson glanced in surprise at the windows across the lobby to find dusk falling over the landscaping outside the main entrance. Inside the gift shop, the clerk walked down an aisle to straighten out bins of stuffed animals that the day's customers had mixed into the wrong places. A smile filtered over his face when he saw her refilling a bin of those little Wilson-ish bears, like the one he bought for the donor walk-through months ago. Then he noticed the bears on the bottom shelf and grinned outright. House may be obligated to mock him for it, but the fodder was a gift in and of itself.

By the time Wilson finally ambled back to the deserted corridor, there were other people in House's room. Wilson blinked when he recognized Officer Morrow, a foreign entity in her street clothes. Cuddy stood beside her with her arms crossed, looking down at her feet. They were carrying on a conversation with House, but Wilson didn't bother eavesdropping at first; he studied House instead: the bow of his back facing the door, legs dangling off the edge of the exam table in two tense, unmoving lines...seeing House not fidgeting or tapping or twiddling something always threw Wilson off. House had his button down wadded in one hand and the back of his t-shirt was spotted with perspiration.

Wilson couldn't see his face, but he heard the sniffles interspersing the low, gravelly tones of his voice as he responded to whatever Officer Morrow had just said. He sounded the way he did when his springtime allergies acted up, and if it weren't for the long fingers clamped over his thigh or the slight rocking that House kept arresting every few seconds, Wilson would have been tempted to think that nothing were wrong at all. As he watched, House balled his free hand up against his stomach, button down and all, and rounded his back a little more. Wilson squished his plush offering to his chest as he heard Cuddy ask him if he needed the emesis basin.

"No," House rasped. "M'fine."

"You are not fine," Cuddy countered. Her gentle tone irked Wilson; after all the crap she had pulled lately, she had no right, in his mind, to take that maternal attitude with anyone, let alone House.

House gave her a childish look and replied, "Am too."

Exasperated, Cuddy threw up her hands and said, "At least let me get you a Benadryl."

"Yeah," House scoffed. "That'll help." Then he scooted to the edge of the table preparatory to struggling to his feet, probably to pace. Cuddy pushed him back by the shoulders, and House went deathly still. "Get your hands off me."

"House, you're sick. Stay put."

House took a deep breath and Wilson marveled at the calm he instilled in his voice when his every limb seemed ready to explode with angry tension. "You have exactly three seconds to let go of me." He made a point of thumping his cane near her feet, a threatening gesture for him, considering the lack of sarcasm in his tone when he did it.

Uneasy, Cuddy unhanded him and stepped back, then looked away as House gained his feet only to hiss and sit right back down, his knuckles whitening over the head of his cane. In a bid to overlook his difficulty, Cuddy drew herself up into a more professional posture - something to hide behind, Wilson reflected - and told Morrow, "We can do this later."

House shook his head. "No we can't. Hey." He jerked his chin at Officer Morrow, his ragged breathing audible all the way out to the edge of the doorway where Wilson lurked. "Patty Cakes. Keep talking."

Morrow frowned at the corruption of her given name and cast Cuddy a dubious glance. When Cuddy dismissed her concern with a shrug, Morrow turned back to House and asked, "Are you sure?"

House snorted, swallowed hard enough that an idiot off the street could have diagnosed nausea, and then snapped, "Yes, I'm sure. Quit it with the damn pity parade. You didn't come down here to watch a drug trafficking suspect puke all over your shoes. Just talk."

"Um." Morrow glanced at her Sketchers and then sidestepped the fallout zone. "Right." She stepped even further back when House levered himself to his feet a second time and managed to stay there. "First off, you're no longer a suspect. I told you that on the phone."

"Whatever." House limped heavily around the exam table and then paused as if he didn't want to risk letting go of it. "Next topic."

Cuddy narrowed her eyes as she took in his awkward stance. "House, are you sure you're okay?"

House rolled his head back on his shoulders and snapped, "I already told you – "

"You're limping worse than usual," Cuddy broke in sharply. "Undercooked eggs doesn't cause increased leg pain."

Ah, Wilson thought; they still didn't realize what was going on. House must have told them he got food poisoning or that his allergies were acting up…or both. And being House, no one would have thought to question the excuses because he would have delivered them as if they were each a separate insult to the inquirer. That usually shut people down in mid care.

House was busy examining his shoes when he replied too reasonably, "Actually, Clostridium botulinum would cause difficulty in moving the arms and legs, which would account for a stiffer, more clumsy gait."

"Yes," Cuddy hedged, "it would. Too bad your movements aren't stiff or clumsy at the moment."

"You don't know that. All you know is what you've observed with your eyes. You can't actually tell if I'm feeling stiff or – " House broke off abruptly as a pensive expression stole over his face. "Wait a minute while I turn that into a dirty metaphor."

Cuddy let out a silent sigh. "I'll give you a rain check. In the mean time, what I've observed is that you're not putting any weight on your right leg." She paused, then, and her eyes flittered all over House's figure before her jaw nearly dropped. As if she couldn't even fathom it, she breathed, "You're in detox."

House flared his nostrils, his lips pressed tightly together, and shot her a look of pure contempt. "Wow. Took you this long to notice."

"But… Now? You could have said something in my office, you know. How long has it been?" Her eyes tracked through his posture, then scanned over the perspiration and the sickly pallor of his face, which merely served to highlight the bright ever-flush to his cheeks. "Two days?"

Grudgingly, House admitted, "A little over thirty six hours."

Cuddy's hands spread out seemingly of their own accord, beseeching. "Why didn't you just tell me?"

House merely blinked at her, unimpressed by her show of disappointment at not being included in the minutia of his life. Not that suddenly giving up Vicodin was a little thing, Wilson added to himself; it was just that Cuddy had sort of lost the right to House's friendly disclosure, assuming that she had ever had it. Hell – sometimes, Wilson didn't even have that right, and no one was closer to House than he was.

When it became clear that House had no intention of explaining his reasoning to her, Cuddy sighed and relocated her hands to her waist. She sounded resigned to the cold shoulder, if put upon by House's reticent attitude, as she asked, "What made you want to quit?"

"I'm thinking of getting into designer drugs instead." House plucked his t-shirt logo. "Vicodin just doesn't go with this shirt."

Cuddy made a face at thin air, and then tried to assure Officer Morrow, "He's kidding."

"No, really," House pressed. His face took on an avid glow that Wilson could only associate with the withdrawal. "I've already tried Special K, and heroin's just like an opiate on steroids, so I'm thinking cocaine. All the cool kids are doing it these days."

Morrow quirked an eyebrow and Cuddy headed off anything she might have said by trying to explain, "Doctor House has a sort of…" She twirled a finger near her ear. "…problem with…" She was obviously groping after words now, and settled on "…situational humor," with near explosive finality.

"Wow," House drawled. "That was impressive. You know – pulling that completely believable explanation out of your ass in like twenty seconds flat."

"Shut up, House."

"I admit, it's a nice ass, though." He craned his back for a better look.

"House."

"But surely with all that extra room in there, it could hold more credible – "

"House!"

House affected his innocent little boy, up to no good face, which was sort of ruined by the withdrawal-induced tic in his cheek and the too-fervid gleam in his puffy, bloodshot eyes. "What?" Then his mood shifted like quicksilver and he demanded, "Where the hell is Wilson? That psychobabbler said he'd be in here like an hour ago."

Cuddy made a valiant attempt to suppress her irritation at his earlier remarks. "He's still in the hospital. I've had security tailing him."

Wilson balked and looked around in a fit of paranoia just to find a security guard perched not-so-inconspicuously against the wall at the end of the corridor. Nice to know that they were, in fact, capable of doing their jobs on occasion, at least when no drug-hyped gunmen were trying to get in.

"And don't call her that," Cuddy added sternly. "Doctor Turner is a highly qualified – "

"I don't really care," House broke in. He peered back at Cuddy, beguiling in an evil sort of way, if that were even possible. "You know that, right? All of these attempts to temper my bastardly ways… You could save yourself the effort; I really don't give a shit."

Cuddy rolled her eyes and glared off to the side, freshly annoyed.

A few exchanges passed between House and Morrow after that, their voices too low for Wilson to hear, and then House snapped, "No. I'm not staying here."

Cuddy held a hand up in appeasement. "House, rehab is made for this."

"No."

"It would be safer," Morrow put in. "Having you in the hospital means more eyes watching out for you."

Cuddy added, "I could even arrange for Wilson to stay in the wing with you."

Morrow nodded. "It would certainly make it easier, having you both in the same place."

House shook his head, then appeared to regret it as he wobbled on his feet. It didn't detract from the bite to his tone, though. "What part of 'no' didn't you understand? I am not staying here. I am not going to rehab."

Cuddy sighed. "House – "

"No means no."

"House!" Cuddy hissed. "What is so horrible about rehab?"

"The cable sucks. No nudie channels."

Cuddy ignored that. "If you want a private room, I'll get you a private room. If it's the orderlies, I'll make sure they keep out. Because of the investigation, you'd already be going in under an assumed name. House, this is the best place for you right now, and if something goes wrong medically, you'll already be in a hospital. Don't think I haven't read your chart. I know how bad it is right now, and if you really do intend to go through with detoxing, then you should be in a hospital. House, you are not well right now."

House mumbled something and then immediately looked at the wall.

Cuddy straightened and glanced at Morrow, then furiously demanded, "Who?"

"Doesn't matter," House groused. "He doesn't work here anymore."

Not to be deterred, Cuddy shifted her feet and said, "You mean to tell me that one of my orderlies helped you cheat last time?"

House ruffled himself, and then snapped, "How else do you think I got Vicodin in there?" Mostly under his breath, he added, "God, you're an idiot."

"I can't believe you!" Cuddy exclaimed. "What did you do, bribe him? Blackmail him?"

House snapped his head up, affronted. "Hey, those idiots are supposed to expect that kind of crap in there! It's not my fault you hired some greedy, amoral bastard who didn't have any compunctions about taking my money and scoring me more of the drugs that landed me there in the first place. It's not like you even gave a shit. I was going through hell – one that you and your self-righteousness imposed on me just to force me to bend to your will and make me take a stupid deal from a corrupt cop who assaulted me first. Not that it mattered to you – you were too busy securing your hospital asset to even notice what I was going through!"

Taken aback, Cuddy shook her head, her eyes riveted on House, seemingly appalled at the accusations. "That is not true." The emotion in her voice captured even House's attention. "You are my friend! Of course it mattered. Maybe you don't believe me, but House, I swear to god – "

"Don't," House snapped lowly. "Don't try to convince me that you cut off my medication out of friendship. It was a bargaining tool to you, Cuddy. You didn't even stop to think what sort of agony you were putting me through."

"Yes I did!" Cuddy yelled back. She was obviously upset by now, but she hid it well. "I thought you would give in before it got that bad."

"If that's true, then you haven't been paying attention," House retorted. "Since when has being bullied ever made me give in?"

Cuddy shook her head, her eyes closed, lips pressed tightly together as if to prevent any emotion from escaping her, lest House rip it apart. "I wasn't…I didn't mean for that. House, I was worried – we all were. We thought you were going to prison."

House studied her just long enough to satisfy himself about some point that didn't show on his face, and then he looked down, chewing his cheek. He didn't seemed mollified, but the visible anger had dimmed somewhat.

Morrow divided her gaze between them and then cocked her head to the side. "Did Detective Tritter really assault you?"

Too late, House realized that he had said something incriminating in front of a police officer, whether it could get him in trouble or not, and quickly averted his gaze.

Cuddy latched onto it though, as if House's earlier words hadn't actually gotten through. "Wait – you mentioned something about that in my office too."

House glared at her from the corner of his eye and merely growled, "Drop it."

Morrow turned troubled. "That's a yes, then."

There was no point denying it now, since House had already offered a telling silence to the original question, so he shrugged instead. "Doesn't matter. It's over."

Cuddy swallowed and gave an aborted shake of her head, then straightened. She knew House; he didn't want to talk about it, and nothing anyone could ever say would make him, so she dropped the subject, just as he'd asked. "If you agree to stay here, in the rehab wing, I will personally bring you any medication you need."

His vitriol undimmed by the side argument and Cuddy's abruptly cowed manner, House demanded, "Is there a dictionary in here?" He glanced around for dramatic effect; of course, there wouldn't be a dictionary handy in a little-used exam room. "We need to reacquaint you with the definition of the word 'no.'" He paused for a moment as if considering this conundrum and then mused, "Maybe it sponsored an episode of Sesame Street. I bet Wilson has it on DVD in the kiddie ward." He fixed his gaze on Cuddy again and suggested coldly, "Maybe you should go look for it. Your cute little adopted parasite might need to learn it someday. You know – for when she's older and going through puberty, and getting ogled by middle-aged perverts."

Anyone less accustomed to House's moods probably would have slapped him or stalked out; that was a little over the line even for House, withdrawal pangs or not. Cuddy merely glanced at the ceiling with a long-suffering expression and then gave him a blatant look of pity. House appeared disgusted by that reaction and put his back to her again, his sweaty palm sliding on the exam table with a soft squeak as he leaned on it to shift his feet.

It was Morrow who took up the argument next, her tone brusque and professional, yet gentle in an odd, curt way. "It's not only you we're concerned for, Doctor House. These men made direct threats against Doctor Wilson, not against you. He's probably in more danger than you are right now."

Petulant now, House muttered, "I'm sure the security guards took that into account when Cuddy ordered them to follow him."

Wilson looked down, well aware of the hurt lurking behind the flippant words.

Undeterred, Morrow pressed, "What, exactly, did they threaten to do, Doctor House? You haven't told me yet."

House turned his head far enough to look at something other than Morrow's shoes.

"Shall I guess?"

With no trace of emotion, House said, "Stop it."

"Outright killing isn't really their style." Morrow went on in spite of the flash of hatred that even Wilson could see in House's glare to her. "They started off with a threat of kidnapping; Doctor Cuddy told me that much. What did they intend to do after they had him?"

Even Cuddy grew uncomfortable watching House's breathing pick up as he fought not to lash out at a police officer. In his current state, violence wasn't far beyond him, not to mention the sort of flogging he could deliver with his tongue even on the best of days. Wilson found his restraint admirable; he could only guess that House knew how ugly he would be if he let even an ounce of it go.

Cuddy turned toward Morrow to say, "I think Doctor House sees your point."

Morrow spared her a glance and nothing more, her attention too focused on driving home a point that Wilson knew damn well House already got. "They must know that you two are together in every sense of the word. Do you know what men like that tend to do with men like you?"

Cuddy spoke up again to say, "Officer Morrow, I'm sure your intentions are good, but I can't allow you to bully a patient in my hospital."

House continued to shiver on his feet, one hand still wrapped over the edge of the exam table, which no doubt bit into his palm, judging by his blanched knuckles. The shaking was too pronounced to chalk it solely up to withdrawal, and his manic yet glassy stare, coupled with the darker flushing of his cheeks, attested to deeper emotions than Wilson was used to seeing on him. Withdrawal tended to heighten moods as well as the frequency of mood swings – rage included. Wilson tensed without conscious thought, poised to rush into the room and hold him back if he had to.

Morrow didn't seem to take House's rapidly disintegrating mood into account when she switched tactics and kept on badgering a clearly incensed man. "You know, this wouldn't be an issue if you had just come to us with the photos in the first place. Instead, your boyfriend – "

"He's not my boyfriend." At the moment, terminology was probably the only thing that House could object to without flying off the deep end, and he practically spit at her when he said it.

Morrow ignored the comment. "Instead, your boyfriend had to steal them from you and give them to your boss, who is the only person in this whole mess who had sense enough to give them to me."

House seethed for a moment, and then snapped, "So, what – you're saying this is all my fault? Fuck you."

Cuddy arched an eyebrow at him. "House… I know you're upset, and in pain, and scared, but that's no excuse – "

"I'm not scared – I was handling it! If I needed the cavalry to come and save me, I would have called my bookie to borrow some actual horses. You had no right sticking your nose in my business."

"Wilson's the one who stuck my nose in your business," Cuddy pointed out, too outwardly cool in light of House's raving. "He brought me the photos. He knew you were out of your depth."

"Oh, so now it's Wilson's fault. That's cute, Cuddy."

"No," Cuddy snapped back. "It's your fault for being an egomaniacal ass and thinking that you could single handedly take on the whole New Jersey drug trade!"

House peered up at her, murderous and mocking at the same time. "Aw. Am I blushing?" In spite of the customary sarcasm, Wilson could tell that Cuddy's accusation hurt him on some level; it was in the set of his shoulders and the bow of his back, and in the way he looked aside immediately after.

Cuddy glared at him. "I can't tell with the fever-flush and all the sweating. And you could use a shower, by the way."

House actually seemed offended by that, but it shut him up long enough to dig his fist into the damaged muscles of his thigh and then demand, "Find Wilson. I want him here."

Cuddy sighed long and hard, and actually seemed regretful to have to tell him, "I can't make him come. He already knows where you are."

House didn't really react, but his increased breathing and the hard swallow betrayed his distress.

"He'll be here," Cuddy said, her voice earnest now in a banal attempt at reassurance.

All House did was whine, "When?"

Cuddy started to shake her head but arrested the gesture before House could glimpse her helplessness. In an effort to distract him, probably, she turned to Officer Morrow and asked, "Was there anything else?"

Morrow quirked an eyebrow at Cuddy, but otherwise, the police facade never faltered. She faced House and said, "We'd appreciate it if you gave us written permission to examine your bank records to see if we can trace the ransom payment you made, and to monitor your accounts for future suspicious activity."

House rallied his snarky side with a visible effort and responded with a queasy if mean chuckle. "Great. You can watch me spend my last five dollars on Ramen noodles." Then he clutched more tightly at the edge of the table with a harsh exhale.

Morrow reset her feet. "Doctor House, I don't think you appreciate your position at the moment."

"On the contrary, I love Ramen noodles." He affected a wistful tilt to his posture, staring off toward the ceiling. "All that starch, and the chewy, rehydrated, dehydrated vegetables..." He snapped back to the moment. "It's like med school all over again. I can't wait."

Morrow took the sarcasm poorly and crossed her arms. "Doctor House, you paid a quarter of a million ransom to men associated with an underground methamphetamine trade. They aren't going to go away now that they know which buttons to push. Blackmail is a crime of long term escalation; they'll want more. Surely you can see that."

"I'm not an idiot," House mumbled. He finally peeled his fingers off of the table and hobbled forward with only his cane for support. He was too busy minding his feet to notice Wilson standing in the doorway, but Morrow's gaze found him by virtue of House's passing the door. Cuddy's followed a second later.

Apparently, Morrow elected to keep her observations to herself. She looked at House's back as he reached the far wall and pressed a hand to it. "Yeah," Morrow countered. "You kind of are."

House craned his head around under his arm to glare bloody murder at her. "Bite me."

Cuddy raised a hand to placate Officer Morrow. "It's the withdrawal. It makes him irritable."

"Right," Morrow deadpanned. "That's what makes him irritable."

House scoffed and pivoted on his good leg, then straightened abruptly to find Wilson standing right smack in front of him. He blinked, his haggard features drawing down in something like confusion, as if he had given up on expecting Wilson to show and couldn't figure out why he suddenly had. Then he looked down and balked. "You bought me a teddy bear?" He raised his head to give Wilson the most comically incredulous look he was capable of. "What is wrong with you?"

"Not just any bear," Wilson replied in his best infomercial-announcer voice. He hefted the thing up to eye level as he sidled around the door jamb; it was easily as bulky as Cuddy, if not as tall. "It's a - "

"Wilson, I swear to god, if you call it a Jimmy Bear..."

Wilson put on his best, doe-eyed pout. "But look - it even comes with its own endoscopic polyp remover." He twiddled the vague medically-reminiscent stuffed shiny thing in the bear's lab coat pocket. "See? Padded and squishy for your colon's comfort."

House just looked at him.

Wilson shrugged and played innocent. "What? I gave him my backup sweater vest and everything." Indeed, he had struggled in his office to get the stupid maroon thing on the bear, along with a dress shirt that didn't fit its stuffed proportions, and a ridiculously hideous tie that should have been burned back in the seventies. Then he had crammed the cheap factory-stitched teddy bear lab coat back on over it, much to the amusement of the nurse who had walked in on him doing it. Wilson held the bear out and House leaned away in something akin to horror. Wilson rolled his eyes. "Come on, House," he taunted. "I know you want him."

House shook his head. "Not really."

"But he's cute! Look." Wilson rested his chin on the bear's shoulder and offered up his best lopsided smile. "Even you couldn't say no to this."

House pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek, head cocked to one side. "I'm not into plush."

"Think of how snuggly he'd be in bed." Wilson let his dimples show only because he knew that House found them endearing against his better judgment. "And he doesn't hog the covers or try to cuddle you like I do." Maintaining that gap-toothed grin of his, Wilson added a pathetic attempt at sounding like Smoky the Bear. "Please let me be your bear, Greg. I'll be the bestest bear in the whole wide world."

House snorted. "No way. Bear-bear's for babies." A second later, House's whole face shut down and he stared at Wilson with eyes that threatened to saucer.

The wind outside lashed rain against the side of the building hard enough that the slaps and patters carried through the silence. Wilson twitched his head to the side and slowly straightened, the bear slipping a little in his grasp. In the interests of salvaging House's dignity, he elected to pretend that House hadn't slipped up. "Yeah, well this one's only for grown up, cranky diagnosticians with lame, absentee best friends who buy equally lame and pointless gifts in a transparent bid to earn forgiveness."

House's head cocked like a wary dog's, turned a bit to one side to regard Wilson from the corners of his eyes. They were red-rimmed and bloodshot from the withdrawal, leaving the irises to gleam with a brighter blue than was healthy, and having them trained on him pierced Wilson with a poorly defined emotion. House seemed to waver for a second, and then he asked with a hearty dose of suspicion, "He's really for me?"

Hoarse and slightly disturbed now, Wilson replied, "Yeah." He shook the bear at him and House's gaze fell to it. All pretense of humor bled away, and Wilson merely coaxed, "Go on; take him."

A few loaded moment dragged by, and then House slowly reached out to grab it by the ear. He raised his eyes in a series of guarded, covert glances at Wilson's face as Wilson released it, as if waiting for him to take it back. The thing weighed House's arm down and he had to set it on the floor to avoid overbalancing with it; it still nearly reached his waist.

Wilson stood there as House kept on staring blankly down to where his hand clutched a huge, floppy plush ear. "Um. House?"

House shook himself and looked up, his eyes shuttering as Wilson watched. Sullen and grudging, House's gaze scattered off to the side as he grumbled, "Thanks."

"Of course." Wilson narrowed his eyes. "Are you alright?"

"M'fine." He sounded distant, his voice hollow and dim, like words inked into brittle parchment.

Behind House, and rendered completely inconsequential by his lack of notice, Morrow's careful professionalism crumpled at the spectacle of the recently rude and obnoxious House standing there like a little lost boy clutching a teddy bear. She glanced at Cuddy and whispered, "Should we leave?"

Cuddy looked to Wilson, who didn't have an answer at the moment. Wilson drew a preparatory breath, lost it in silence, and then prompted, "House."

House came back to himself with a jerk and several rapid blinks, then shuffled on his good leg to glance at the women behind him. Upon recognizing the helpless pity on their faces, he snarled, "What?"

"Nothing," Cuddy assured him, hands raised to ward him off. If anything, the strange interlude had served to spook all four of them, House included, but Cuddy appeared more shaken than even Wilson felt. After all, he had witnessed House digress like that before, if not in the exact same manner. "Officer Morrow was just...asking about your bank account..."

House straightened, glared at Wilson as if he had done something unforgivable, and flung the bear back toward him. It was too heavy to properly lob across the space between them, but the effect of trying to do so got through. Wilson's jaw worked behind his sealed lips as he stared back at House with owlish eyes, bewildered, and then he let his gaze slink to the side in a jittered rush. He looked at Cuddy, who seemed afraid to draw attention to herself, and then risked looking back at House.

For his part, House merely glared down at the bear and gestured offensively at Wilson. "I don't want it." He screwed his face up in disgust, not necessarily at the gift itself, and added, "It's stupid." Then he stalked back to the exam table with an angry gait that could only have hurt more than his earlier attempts to limp a pacing circuit. If he weren't already flushed with the withdrawal, Wilson imagined he would have seen embarrassment coloring House's face crimson.

Wilson stared after him, his lips parted, at a loss. Then he set his mouth in a straight line, grabbed the bear by the same ear that House had, and dragged it over to the exam table. When House gave up on the attempted pacing and eased himself back onto the table, Wilson set the bear next to him and then ignored both it and the man next to it, stuffing his hands in his pockets as if nothing were going on at all. "Evening, Officer Morrow."

Morrow nodded uncertainly in his direction. "Doctor Wilson."

"I can fill out the paperwork for the bank thing, if it's easier," Wilson offered. "I'm a cosigner on all his accounts."

Morrow glanced at House for permission, who shrugged and then eyed the huge stuffed bear as if it might suddenly start gnawing on his face. "Fine," House muttered. "You can have my bank records." Just for form's sake, House glanced up from under his brows and added, "Balance my checkbook while you're at it. I haven't kept a ledger since I was fifteen."

Morrow appeared at least slightly amused by that. "Accounting services cost extra."

"Hey, don't my tax dollars already pay your salary?"

"Yours, personally? You have about three cents worth of capital stored up so far this month. After all the hours I've dedicated to you, you'll still be paying my last week's salary in 2062."

House grunted and looked down again. The minute rocking resumed, and he didn't stop himself this time.

Morrow tried not to watch him as she told Wilson, "I'll have the paperwork sent to your office. Can our courier leave it with your assistant?"

Wilson nodded. "I'll tell her to set it aside for me."

"Great." Morrow affirmed that again, to herself, and tried not to stare at the incongruity of a surly House glowering at her from beside an adorable bear dressed in Wilson's spare clothes. She blinked incredulously and then shook her head at the whole thing. "Right. Moving on, then. Doctor House, we need to discuss a plan going forward now that we've cleared you of any connection in the meth operation."

That gave House pause, or at least Wilson thought it had until House scrambled to grab the emesis basin next to him and hang his face more or less in it. It turned out to be a false alarm, but House kept the plastic basin in his lap and started rocking again. Wilson rounded the bear to sit beside him, and when House merely shifted his eyes toward Wilson's knee, Wilson rested a hand between his shoulder blades, nothing more. House concentrated on the emesis basin again, but he angled himself toward Wilson in such a way that Wilson didn't think he was aware of doing it.

Morrow waited a few more moments for House to give some indication that he was once again paying attention, but she was a police officer; her time was precious. "Doctor House?"

"No," House insisted. His whole manner had deteriorated into something more like a stubborn child stomping his foot, and Wilson wondered what had caused such a sudden shift in behavior.

"No, what?" Morrow asked.

"No rehab, idiot."

"Ah." Morrow rocked back on her heels, her thumbs hooked in her pockets the way Wilson had seen her do with her gun belt at the rest area when they had first met. She wore a shoulder holster at the moment; Wilson could see the straps beneath her light summer jacket. "Doctor House, we're trying to keep you alive and safe. So tell me: what would it take to convince you to stay here?"

"Look," House mumbled. He shifted a shoulder and Wilson realized that he was trying to unobtrusively lean against Wilson's outstretched arm. "You sort of already screwed up the whole protective custody thing."

Wilson slipped his arm lower on House's back, and House fit himself into the curve of his elbow in such a way that Wilson didn't even have grounds to acknowledge it. He did, however, puff up a bit and shoot Cuddy a self-satisfied half-smirk. Ha. See? He's mine. Choke on it.

"So forgive me," House went on, mumbling as he tried to situate himself comfortably enough to relax a little bit, "if I don't exactly trust your judgment on the whole safe haven thing." He finally found a relatively decent position and sank back against Wilson with a rumbling sigh, eyes closing as he bowed his head and took to absently kneading and rubbing at his bad thigh.

Morrow sucked her lips between her teeth and looked down, crossing her arms in a defensive posture. "It's true that we should have watched the hotel more closely. And I admit that we've wasted time investigating you, but now that we're on the right track – "

"I want to go home."

Morrow's voice dried up and Wilson tightened his arm around House. A weak snuffle came from House's quarter and Wilson felt him tense anew.

Morrow shook her head as if she were nearly defeated. "Doctor House – "

House's cheek twitched. "I'm not a doctor anymore, thanks to you."

A pause to regroup, and then Morrow allowed, "Yes; it's a regrettable situation. We'll get it sorted out."

House made a sound of discomfort that Wilson decided not to call a squeak, then shot death glares at the walls as if they were to blame for the sound. "You do that."

Cuddy rolled her eyes, lifting her head in the process from the hand she had been half hiding behind. "House, be civil."

Wilson sighed, nostrils flaring, and said, "Cuddy, leave him alone. He's miserable."

"I won't have him – "

Wilson felt it when his tenuous self control snapped. Too much pressure, too many things going wrong, too much to feel all at once… "You won't have him what? You already got him fired. Do you think that earns any currency with me? Leave him be! So what if he's rude? He's earned it by now!"

Morrow blinked, but not at Wilson's outburst. Instead, she pivoted and calmly asked Cuddy, "You fired him? Over a couple of police background checks?"

Wilson tucked his chin and held onto House with his other arm too, aware of how House had cringed the moment he started shouting, if only a little bit. They were both breathing hard now and shivering, but for entirely different reasons.

"No," Cuddy hedged. "The board decided to revoke his tenure."

House murmured a wordless question and Wilson just shook his head, his forehead coming to rest against House's temple. It seemed like House was burning up; he radiated an unhealthy, sticky sort of heat.

Morrow simply repeated, "Over a couple of police background checks?"

"There were extenuating circumstances," Cuddy replied, harried. "I'm trying to get him reinstated."

A vindictive streak worked its way through Wilson's innards. Without lifting his head, he supplied, "It's the gay thing. Apparently, one of the other doctors here is offended by the thought of us humping like rabbits."

House twisted around to gape at him, and Cuddy spluttered a half-coherent denial as the shock on House's features melted into astonished pride.

Morrow shifted to fully face her, every inch the cop. "Is that true?"

"No," Cuddy flatly denied. "It is not true. The fact that Doctor House's tox screen revealed increased levels of opiates – "

Wilson cut in with, " – was a convenient excuse, seeing as how he wasn't on the clock at the time, and the overdose was determined accidental. There were witnesses – other doctors."

House tipped his head in against Wilson's chest and rumbled out Wilson's name as if he were trying to distract him from saying anything more. For his ears only, House murmured, "Wilson, you're shaking."

"I know," Wilson whispered back. He offered no apology for what he'd said.

"It's not worth getting so mad," House pressed, still sotto voce.

Morrow stared hard at Cuddy. "You're aware that firing an employee because of his sexual orientation is illegal, aren't you?"

Wilson nosed House's temple and breathed out. "Yes it is."

"You're gonna give yourself a coronary," House whispered more forcefully. It took a second for Wilson to register the fingers laced around his wrist; House was taking his pulse, which was no doubt way too high at the moment.

"That's not why I fired him," Cuddy rushed to reply to Officer Morrow. "There were complaints – I have a whole file drawer dedicated to – "

Wilson couldn't stop himself from interrupting yet again, and he ignored the way House's fingers tightened on his wrist. "Most of which are from former patients and patients' families who dropped the complaints after House saved their lives. Out of the thirty-some times he's been served with papers in last fifteen years, only three suits ever went forward, and one of them wasn't even his doing – it was Chase's."

"Wilson." House's voice sounded rough and ill-used. When Wilson looked down, he noticed a hint of embarrassment hiding behind the already pink tinge to his cheekbones. "Enough already."

Cuddy was busy bringing up other points, but Wilson found himself stuck on an indrawn breath. The other voices around him faded for a split second and all he could hear was a sort of rush of nothing against his eardrums. He had given himself an anxiety attack; his heart was beating too fast. In retrospect, this was probably inevitable considering the day they'd had. Wilson only marveled at how calm he felt now, in the midst of it. He clenched his hand, the one not attached to the arm wrapped around House. His palm felt clammy, so he wiped it on his pants and looked up.

The dull silence cleared like a receding ocean wave, and once it was gone, Wilson's heartbeat slowed, a deep throb that he could feel reverberating in his chest for several more seconds as the near-attack wore off. House was watching him with a wary eye, the doctor evident in his scrutiny, but when Wilson met his gaze with his usual blandness, House flared his nostrils and appeared to dismiss any concerns he may have been entertaining.

Morrow's dry tone broke into Wilson's distracted reverie as she said to Cuddy, "Oh, so now you fired him because some other doctor doesn't like knowing that he's engaged to another man?"

"No!" Cuddy exclaimed. "No. Officer Morrow, I promise you, that is not – "

"I think it is." Morrow crossed her arms over her chest. On anyone else, it would have been a defensive posture; on Morrow, it looked intimidating.

"No." Cuddy swept her hands through the air at waist level as if she could convince Morrow based solely on the expansiveness of her gestures. "The other doctor filed a harassment complaint – "

"Which I'm guessing has happened before," Morrow broke in, her voice cold. "Doctor House strikes me as the sort of man who gets complained about a lot, and yet this complaint is the one that gets him fired? I'm sensing an unsettling anomaly in the application of penalties for conduct violations."

House burrowed against Wilson, which was surprising considering that they were not alone. He must have really been feeling like crap. "Hey," Wilson murmured. "Everything okay?"

In an undertone, House griped, "I'm bored." Code for miserable, in pain, and no longer in the mood to deal with all of the drama going on in front of him.

Cuddy stammered over an unformed response, and then spluttered, "We're still investigating the complaint. Doctor House's story differed – "

"Then you fired Doctor House over a complaint that hadn't even been verified." Morrow tipped her head to the side and regarded Cuddy as if she were a prevaricating perp. "That's very interesting, Doctor Cuddy."

His voice too low to carry to anyone except House, Wilson offered, "Want me to get rid of them?"

House shrugged and hugged his stomach. "Don't care."

"I – no," Cuddy insisted.

Unsympathetic as he was inclined to be, Wilson had to admire how well she maintained her poise. He snorted, though, and then hid it by scratching at his nose. House had apparently lost interest in the proceedings altogether, because he fidgeted about in Wilson's grasp until he managed to pry his iPod out of his pocket. House started to scroll through the menu, sighed, and then seemed to lose interest in that as well. Wilson squeezed him briefly but offered no further sign of affection, lest House throw him off.

"No, that is not..." Cuddy began. She paused to regroup, and continued in a more professional tone – her press-statement voice. "It's an internal matter, decided upon by the board. There were numerous factors involved including attendance issues, conduct issues – matters going back several years. We didn't reach this decision lightly, but the board and I feel that this is in the best interests of the hospital at this time."

Morrow tapped her foot, clearly unimpressed, and then announced, "I'm going to pretend I didn't just hear you try to justify it." She pointedly turned away from Cuddy to address House, who gazed back at her, unimpressed and irritable. "Doctor House" – she seemed to emphasize his title on purpose this time – "I'll say again that I think it would be a good idea for you to remain in the hospital." Her glance to Cuddy seemed to add, in spite of her.

House practically snuggled back into Wilson's arms as if it were the most natural place for him to be. "Way to lay the smack-down on my former boss. You're my new hero."

Morrow tried hard not to smile at that, even if House did deliver the compliment in the surliest manner possible. "Focus, sir. You and Doctor Wilson would be much safer in the rehab wing."

"The answer's still no." And yet he looked just the slightest bit pleased at her reaction. Then his eyes found the ridiculously huge stuffed bear, which still occupied half the exam table, and his whole face clammed back up. If Wilson didn't know any better, he would guess that the bear unsettled him.

Morrow followed his gaze, then gave in to a heavy sigh. "Doctor – "

Finally, the affected arrogance faded, and House sobered like an airplane in free fall. "If you were me, would you really want the people you work with to see you like this?"

Morrow gradually shut her mouth, her gaze steadily trained on House's. After a few moments, she admitted, "No."

House nodded, vindicated, and dropped his gaze.

Then Morrow added, "But I wouldn't want them to see me dead, either."

Wilson looked away for a moment and then cleared his throat. "House, just stay here. At least for tonight. If you still hate it in the morning, I'll take you home, but…" He lifted his gaze to find House's head craned in his direction even though his eyes wandered elsewhere, his haggard face mostly hidden against Wilson's shoulder. "Please."

House struggled visibly between giving into Wilson's soft plea and standing on his pride.

Gently, Cuddy coaxed, "I'll give you anything want, House. Just stay here."

House straightened himself out, pulling away from Wilson in the process, and glanced at her, reluctance and swallowed dignity written in every faintly shivering limb. Wilson let his hand linger on House's right shoulder just to maintain the connection, his left side cold where House had just been leaning. House wasn't giving in because of what Cuddy had said, and Wilson knew it; House's glance at him betrayed that much. "I want a strip tease and a bottle of bourbon."

Cuddy smiled, but sadly. If anything, the familiar old banter made his capitulation that much more bitter. "No, House."

"A carton of cigarettes?"

Wilson answered that one. "Not a chance."

House spared him an irritated glare. "Typical oncologist." Then he went right back to negotiating with Cuddy, however farcical an attempt it was. "Make out with Wilson in the clinic. Voyeurism's number eight on my kink checklist."

Cuddy rolled her eyes, her smile growing lighter at House's usual crass tactics, even if her expression communicated an ephemeral sort of pain because of it. "That one, I'll consider."

Even Wilson felt a soft pang in his stomach; he had once enjoyed listening to House and Cuddy spar like this, and he missed the easy friendship they had all once had, House and Cuddy trading inappropriate barbs while Wilson pretended to mediate. Glancing at House, it seemed like the whole series of arguments that had just taken place were mere figments; he smirked up at Cuddy, almost playful in a depressive kind of way. Mood swing, Wilson thought. A moment of irrational frivolity and lowered inhibitions, courtesy of acute opiate withdrawal.

House wrinkled his nose. "You know what? I changed my mind. Hands off my boy toy."

"How about I unlock the dirty cable channels instead?" Cuddy offered; she may have actually been serious, but Wilson couldn't read her well enough to be sure.

House's mouth lifted on one side. "Deal. And I want ice cream for breakfast."

"Whatever makes you happy."

Like a hopeful puppy, House added, "Slathered all over your bare, bouncy breasts?" His mood was infectious; Wilson actually chuffed under his breath even though his insides continued to simmer with hidden, residual anger.

Cuddy arched an eyebrow. "Uh, no. But I won't stop you from slathering it all over Wilson's bare breasts."

Wilson straightened and nixed the entire notion with a double-handed gesture. "Hey, wait, no. You are not licking things off of my bare body."

House raised a challenging eyebrow. "Not even – ?"

"Don't go there." Wilson stabbed a finger in his direction. "Do not go there." He couldn't know for certain how House had intended to finish that, but he could guess, and a blanket prohibition seemed like the safest recourse.

House pouted. "Party pooper." Wilson would have offered a comeback, but House's leg chose that moment to spasm – no doubt the first in a long line of withdrawal-induced muscle cramps. House grabbed for his thigh and gasped audibly, his whole body tensing at the assault. He could barely manage enough breath to bite out, "Son of a bitch." Cuddy stepped toward him first, but as soon as House noticed the movement in his periphery, his head shot up and he snarled, "Don't fucking touch me!"

"Okay." Cuddy backed off without another thought and Officer Morrow tried to make a discrete exit, her cheeks coloring in sympathetic embarrassment.

Wilson tested the waters with a tentative hand on House's forearm. If House meant to protest, it got lost when the muscles of his thigh clamped down for real. Wilson grabbed him around the middle to keep him from toppling onto the floor when he curled forward with a garbled cry, ignoring the way House's breathing fractured into tiny, punctured exclamations of, "…ow…ow, god…fuck…" every time he exhaled.

Wilson tried to hold him through it, one arm across House's middle and his other hand threaded through the fingers that House had gouged into the quivering muscles of his leg. Wilson could feel the cords of cramped muscles under their joined hands and he winced in sympathy. When House threw his head back and then twisted to the side with a wretched groan, it didn't register that House was about to throw up until Wilson felt the abdominal muscles under his arm clench and then ripple. There was no way that either of them could have held the plastic basin steady for it anyway, and Cuddy had retreated to the other side of the room, her eyes wide, hand over her mouth. Doctor or no, seeing a person in that much pain always hit on a visceral level.

"It's okay," Wilson murmured, tightening his grip as House's stomach heaved. Wilson resigned himself to the inevitability of having his clothes ruined; it was nothing that hadn't happened before. "It's okay; I've got you." He could feel every muscle in House's upper body go taut, chest jumping against Wilson's steadying hand as he fought to suck in a fresh breath, shaking so hard that Wilson pressed his face to House's neck in a futile effort to calm him just the smallest bit. Also, because with his eyes so close to House's hairline, he didn't have to watch the agonized contortions of his face.

House grabbed the arm that Wilson had locked over his chest, perhaps to pry it off, but Wilson refused to loosen his grip and he ended up biting his lip as House's fingernails gouged into his forearm. Cuddy reappeared in front of them then, a trash can in her hands, and by some miracle, House managed not to make a mess of all three of them when his stomach finally overcame his fearsome will power.

Wilson folded over him and held House's head against his shoulder so that he didn't miss the trash can, trying to keep him still as he twisted involuntarily. "Got you," Wilson muttered. "Got you. Just let it go. It's fine."

House wheezed, the smell of vomit accosting the filtered hospital air, and gagged a second time. It almost sounded as if he were choking, but a second wave gripped him and Wilson felt House's stomach hollow with the force of it. A faint sort of wail drifted up on the heels of a partially digested breakfast, cut off by a coughing fit.

When House clenched all over and twisted again, Cuddy followed him with the trash can, but House folded too far into Wilson's arm for her to reach. Her voice nearing shrill, Cuddy asked, "Should I get a muscle relaxant?"

"Not yet," Wilson grunted. House let out a mewlish growl and made a fist over the scar on his thigh. "It should pass on its own." He swiped his hand over the fresh sweat beaded across House's neck, counting the rapid breaths that House exhaled in hot bursts against Wilson's shoulder, then pressed two fingers to his carotid, which stood out in stark relief against his corded neck. Pulse one ten, fluttering a bit but strong. Not so bad, considering.

A series of shudders took House next, and then he sucked in several high-pitched, whistling breaths before he swallowed and licked his lips, holding his breath now, perhaps because the spasm had gotten so bad that he couldn't even manage to exhale. Wilson was about to demand the muscle relaxant after all when a huge rush of air finally left House's lungs, followed by a few gasps and then an unrepentant groan of relief.

Wilson glanced down to catch a glimpse of House's fingers uncurling as he slumped back against Wilson's chest, panting in sharp, shallow bursts, eyes closed over the slackening lines of his face. Wilson rocked back with him, both of them heaving in time with House's labored respirations, arms moving to cinch across House's ribs, holding him up as much as embracing him.

A second later, House calmly announced, "Ow." His voice cracked in the middle of the syllable. He flinched from something that Wilson couldn't feel and then squirmed a bit, probably a residual from the spasm, like an aftershock. It sent House's respirations shuddering off rhythm again, and he dug his head into Wilson's collarbone with a dull whine.

Wilson shut his eyes, his nose pressed to House's neck. "Breathe more deeply. You'll pass out."

Weak but steady, House growled, "Good."

"Oh my god," Cuddy interjected. "Are you okay?"

Wilson looked up at her even as House turned his face into the crook of Wilson's neck to hide his expression from her. Wilson had nearly forgotten she was there. A quick scan revealed Officer Morrow's absence, and then Wilson raised his eyebrows at Cuddy. "What, you thought this would be fun? You've seen him detox before."

"Well," Cuddy stammered. "Yes, but it wasn't…"

House sucked in a drought of air, and without opening his eyes or raising his head, rasped in a tone that ranged all over his vocal range, "How would she know? She always sent me home when it got really bad. Never had to watch."

Wilson ducked his head and watched his own hand smooth down the rampant, sweaty curls over House's ear as if it were a foreign appendage. House stirred at the touch and then swallowed several times in rapid succession. In anticipation of a fresh wave of vomiting, Wilson grabbed the trash can from Cuddy's hands, but House settled a moment later. "False alarm?" He set the used can aside, but within easy reach.

House grunted and then blinked up at Wilson through glazed eyes. "I want my ice cream now. And I want it smeared all over – "

"Whatever you want, House." Wilson thumbed over House's cheekbone and House strained to see it as if its being there confused him. His skin was hot to the touch – feverish and slick, giving the illusion of translucence. He truly looked terrible, and maybe it was that which led Wilson to attempt a grin as he offered, "I'll even let you stick a cherry on the end of my dick if it makes you happy." He didn't even care that Cuddy was standing right there, listening; let her see them together. Let her see that no matter how bad Wilson might be for House, House still wanted him.

House grinned blearily. "Promise?"

Wilson frowned, but replied, "Yeah, promise." House seemed disoriented – too disoriented for a muscle spasm, especially considering the fact that he had seemed perfectly lucid in the immediate aftermath. "Do you remember where we are?"

House gave a sluggish blink, his gaze sliding down Wilson's chest in fits and starts until he found a button that apparently fascinated the hell out of him.

The sound of Cuddy picking up the huge stuffed bear drew Wilson's attention away from the finger that House extended to flick at his shirt. House had knocked the thing to the floor during the spasm, not that Wilson had bothered to notice until now. The sheer size of the bear protruding from Cuddy's arms made it look as if she should fall over. Wilson watched her set it on a chair in the corner of the room, and then she met his concerned gaze.

Wilson licked his lips and nodded at the call button. "We need to get him hooked up to an EEG. And get Foreman back here. I think he's having another partial seizure."

For split second, Cuddy's face went blank, and then she narrowed her eyes. "You took his pulse just now, didn't you?"

Wilson copied her expression, brow furrowed. "Yeah – borderline tachycardic. Why? He's fine now."

"Arhythmia?"

Wilson's frown took over the majority of his face. "Slight. But that's normal for someone in severe pain."

"Yeah," Cuddy barked with a dismissive wave. "But what if it precipitated the seizure?"

Wilson's forehead smoothed as it dawned on him. "You think they're being caused by a cardiac arrhythmia?" He turned pensive again as he ran through a few of the incidents – events leading up to flashbacks, which were probably seizures in and of themselves, as well as the incident on the sidewalk. House had been upset about something before each one – arguing with Wilson or trying to avoid certain topics – things that would speed up his heart rate. Before the grand mal in House's bedroom, House had been at a ten on the pain scale, tachycardic and on the verge of passing out. Even the more recent incident in the shower, when House had broken off to swallow through an automatism, could fit; sexual acts resulted in increased heart rates. Hell, Wilson could even chalk up the birthday incident to a partial seizure; he simply hadn't known to look for something medically wrong at the time.

If House had an underlying heart condition of some sort, then the increased heart rate could reveal an intermittent arrhythmia. The only incident that didn't fit was the flashback that Wilson had woken up to the night before, but any number of things could have served to sufficiently speed up House's heart rate. Plus, the very nature of an intermittent cardiac arrhythmia meant that on occasion, it simply happened without provocation.

Then Wilson's mind grazed over the infarction, and all of his injunctions to House about an undiagnosed clotting disorder. After that, the thought process felt inevitable. House was a chronic Vicodin user, which caused a number of side effects like weight loss and diarrhea, fatigue and occasional shortness of breath due to suppression of the respiratory system. He didn't exercise much because too much exertion made his leg hurt, and left him feeling sick and dizzy, ostensibly from the pain, but Wilson had observed House's pacing fits more than often enough to see a possible intolerance for strenuous activity that had nothing to do with the weakened leg.

The thing was, all of that could be written off as a combination of being partially crippled, and of being a pain patient who took copious amounts of Vicodin on a daily basis. But what if they weren't actually side effects? What if House's Vicodin use had been masking actual symptoms for the past ten years? Symptoms that had started with the clot in his leg?

Wilson blinked, his eyes wide under wobbling eyebrows. "I'm an idiot."

House roused himself enough to grunt, "Duh."

"What?" Cuddy demanded. "I know that look. What are you thinking?"

Wilson raised a hand and twiddled his fingers in the air as if he could conjure the end of the thought process. It was right there; he could feel it. Was this what House went through on every patient? That frustrating sense that he knew the damn answer, but he couldn't get to it because he didn't have the right information? "Uh. Bhu…mmm, I know it. Hang on." Wilson shut his eyes and went through the whole chain of reasoning again. He just needed his brain to keep going past the mental wall that blocked off the answer. "Clot. Blood clots. Intermittent arrhythmia. Weight loss. Diarrhea. Nausea. Shortness of breath. Exercise intolerance… Seizure disorder… The seizures are a blind," Wilson declared. "The arrhythmia's the key. It's causing everything, and we missed it because of the Vicodin." To himself, Wilson muttered, "Pulse one ten…fluttering. Atrial fibrillation." Wilson blinked his eyes open and looked up at Cuddy. "Atrial fibrillation. It causes the blood to pool and clot, often leading to strokes. An infarction in the thigh would be an unusual presentation, but it still works. And certain types of seizures are known to be caused, on occasion, by fluctuations in heart rate – temporal lobe seizures among them."

Cuddy started to shake her head, but Wilson kept speaking over her silent objections.

"I remember Foreman saying that House was probably prone to seizure disorders even before the bus crash – his personality type indicates a susceptibility. The leaps of logic, the way he acts sometimes, even the intelligence. Some studies show a correlation between certain personality traits and temporal lobe abnormalities. The seizures he's been having originate in the right temporal lobe."

Cuddy shook her head, dubious. "But the skull fracture explains that."

"Does it?" Wilson asked rhetorically. "It may explain the recent severity, it may even have caused the emergence of recognizable epileptiform activity, but it doesn't explain the timeline. The bus crash shook him up – he was having mild anxiety attacks, he got a prescription for Xanax…it didn't work. So he came to you for Depakote, an anticonvulsant, and he felt better for a while. Then he started messing with his pain regimen, switched medications – they weren't working as well as the Vicodin. He experienced at least five episodes of severe breakthrough pain from January to March. In March, he supposedly overdosed on Fentanyl and suffered a grand mal seizure." Wilson framed his point between thumb and forefinger. "But we couldn't prove it was an overdose. We could infer and assume, based on the evidence we had at the time, but we couldn't prove it because we never got him to the hospital for a blood test."

Cuddy nodded, pensive grooves running through her forehead. "The night of the blizzard."

"Right!" Wilson wriggled himself into a position that wouldn't leave his ass cheeks numb and glanced down to find House watching him with his usual clarity, only mildly dulled by the withdrawal. "You didn't overdose," Wilson affirmed. "The pain caused an irregular heart rhythm, and that caused the seizure. After the shooting, your medication was all over the place. You missed doses, you were stressed out and anxious, I wasn't helping matters, and you stopped taking gabapentin, which reduced your seizure threshold even more. It makes perfect sense. All of it could be explained by an atrial fibrillation." Wilson grinned, all teeth and eager glee. "It's what caused your infarction, it's been causing problems ever since; we were just too obsessed with your Vicodin use to listen whenever you tried to tell us that it wasn't the pills. House, it fits!" Then his smile wavered. "Right?"

House stared at him in that unnerving way of his, ice blue eyes that could read every micro-expression in every line of an otherwise inscrutable face, as if he could see right through a person, dissect them down to their constituent parts and render them meaningless. "Do you even realize what you just said?"

Wilson blinked a few times, his face falling so profoundly that he could feel it. The whole theory shined in his head like a sparkly new Mustang convertible, and the thought that it was stupid, that House would shred it the way he ripped apart his fellows' ideas, came near to crushing him. "It makes sense, doesn't it?"

House swallowed and Wilson could hear it when he peeled his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "I love you."

Of all the things… Wilson blinked, face blank, his head ticking to the side in an aborted shake. It was such a nonsequitor that all he could say back was, "So it does make sense?"

House scowled, but there was no malice to it. "You moron."

Wilson frowned. "I can't tell if you're reassuring me or not."

"I just gushed my unfettered feelings at you! What other reassurance do you need?"

"I'm not sure," Wilson deadpanned. "See, this has never happened before, so I'm a little confused as to how I should take your declaration."

House merely looked at him, his face set in impatient expectation.

"Um." Wilson glanced up and started to find Cuddy still standing beside the gigantic teddy bear. He looked back at House and said, "I love you too?"

"Oh, wow!" House shoved at him and Wilson caught himself with a hand on the crinkly paper. "And to think I ever doubted the force of your convictions."

Wilson pressed his mouth into a wry grimace, eyes seeking the ceiling. "Your timing could be better."

"No it couldn't."

"How do you figure?"

House hesitated, glanced in Cuddy's direction, and then dismissed her presence simply by failing to care that she occupied the room. "You really don't realize what you said, do you."

Wilson's shoulders went up of their own accord, his hands spreads in helpless solicitude. "I thought I diagnosed you. I could be wrong, though." He made a squicky face and added, "All that medical jargon."

From House's expression, he couldn't quite come to terms with Wilson's denseness, but it didn't last long. His features softened and a rare, tiny smile emerged on his face. The smile. Wilson's smile. "Hmph." House looked down and used one finger to trace an inscrutable pattern on his pant leg.

Wilson blinked at him, then shook his head. "No, seriously. What is it?"

"Nothing." House flattened his hand over the resection site on his thigh and peered into the middle distance.

"That's not nothing," Wilson pressed. "You're…" He flapped his hands around and then settled on, "…glowy."

House raised both eyebrows and said, "Yup," popping his lips on the 'p.'

Wilson practically bored holes in the side of House's head, he stared so hard. "I'm serious."

"I know."

"No, really."

"Mm-hm."

"House! Come on; quit being cryptic."

House shook his head. "Nuh-uh."

Wilson began to think that perhaps that secret little smile was more infuriating than anything else. "You're an ass."

"If you say so."

"Tell me!"

"Wilson. If I have to explain it, then – "

"Do not pull the girl line on me."

House shot him a smug look, obviously trying not to smile again.

"Okay, fine." Wilson held up his hands in surrender. "Keep your damn secrets."

"I intend to."

Wilson fumed in impotent ignorance. "Jerk."

"You're cute when you're pissy."

"Bite me."

--tbc