Waking up was different from how he'd imagined.

Sure, he'd woken up from three day long drug induced sleeps before, which entailed the usual fight for consciousness.

In this fight you swim in and out of consciousness for some indeterminable time, neither asleep nor waking, neither awake nor falling. During this time you are desperately trying to fight your way to the land of the real with a warm silence disturbed by the reassuring thrums and clicks and beeps of machines surrounding you.

As he tried to pull himself towards the faint sounds and cool real of the world, moments of his childhood filtered through his mind.

For those who have not fought this battle of consciousness there is a way to describe it.

Do you remember being little? A height when kitchen countertops seemed like Everest and climbing stairs brought your knees close to your thumping heart?

Did you ever clamber into your parents' bed and become lost under the many sheets and thick comforter?

All you can see is a dark and soft world before you and despite the fact that you can hear the outside world, the reassuring sound of your mother's soothing voice, you begin to panic.

Will you ever get out?

Will you ever escape the darkness?

You scramble around trying to throw off the heavy barrier. It seems like hours that your heart is thumping in your chest that your limbs reach out only to feel the same dark softness that would be oh so easy to sink into and loose yourself in, but you fight on until the scrambling comes to its finality.

The darkness disappears from beneath your trembling hands and knees as you come crashing down on the world, and the haze of panic begins to dissipate.

House fell from darkness and was surrounded by the harsh hospital light that he was reluctant to look upon.

It was different from how he'd imagined.

From how he'd hallucinated.

It was still night outside, but the lights in the room were brighter.

There was still pain, but is was accompanied with and aching tired stiffness that made him want to turn back to the world of warm darkness he'd just left.

He had an additional three days growth to his stubble, but it felt both coarse and fine under his sensation deprived fingertips.

She was there.

But it was different.

Of course she had a book in hand, but the cover was dark with an angular design giving a little insight to the darkness of the books contents. A far cry from the trashy romance novel he had imagined her reading.

She was dressed; of course, his imagination hadn't been that kind to him.

Or her for that matter, he thought looking back on it.

She was dressed professionally in clean lined fresh clothes, no hint of stain or crease. Her hair was clean, though hastily pulled back into a bun after a brief styling following a no-doubt quick shower.

She was settled deep into the depths of a comfy looking chair that may have been 'borrowed' from the OB/GYN faculty lounge. He smiled at the thought that he had sat in the very same chair not even 6 weeks ago. She sat sideways, her back leaning against a large cushion and her stocking clad shoeless feet dangling over the opposite edge.

She looked entirely comfortable.

Comfortable with life, with the shooting, with him.

The slightest hint of envy shot through him.

He was never comfortable.

He ambled through life with his trusty and hated cane in hand never quite feeling at home. The closest he came to being comfortable was escape.

To escape, to forget, to truly not care about the world and the people in it.

And it was getting harder.

It was taking more Vicodin, more alcohol, louder music, faster bike rides just to reach that blissful place where his mind would go blank and he'd be free for the briefest moment.

But he was never comfortable.

He almost didn't want to disturb her.

"Hey." his voice rasped in a low hoarse whisper that caused her to jump slightly.

Their eyes connected for the briefest of moments; a tired relief visible in both pairs along with a hint of something neither would admit.

"Hey." She whispered back, placing her book on the wide back of the seat she stood. In a matter of seconds she was at his side with a cup of water and ice chips in her hand.

He took the cup, which felt like a ton weight in his stiff swollen fingers and brought it to his chapped lips. As the cool liquid slipped down his throat he fought the urge to wretch. Once satisfied that he wasn't going to cover himself in bile he chewed on the ice chips and nodded in thanks.

Which was a mistake that he instantly regretted.

Pain ripped through his neck causing him to grimace and hiss.

Not at all like he'd imagined.

Cameron's small hand rested on his shoulder as she took the cup from his weak hands.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Ya think?" he whispered, his voice a little stronger and smoother than his first raspy attempt at speech.

Her hand on his shoulder was soft and warm; and surprisingly welcome. It was reassuring, that soft touch. It was reassuring just to see her there when he woke up, as if his perception of her wasn't entirely wrong.

He waited a little for the blissful morphine haze to regroup.

"So, how long was I out?" he murmured.

"Three days." She said softly, offering the cup of ice water once more.

"Figured as much." He said as his fingers brushed hers, "You been here the whole time?"

She smiled in reply. "Long enough."

"So, did I get some poor crippled bike rider's organs? Or am I still me?" he asked smirking as he downed the rest of the cup and chewed thoughtfully on the rapidly disappearing chips of ice.

"The bullet to your abdomen nicked your bowel and lodged in the posterior rib."

"Well, I always say if you're going to get shot do it in a hospital." The line was just too good to pass up. And as his subconscious went to the trouble of being witty in his hallucination, he had to give it give it a shot.

She offered a small smile before continuing.

Again it was different from how he imagined.

"The shot in your neck…" she said with a sigh, "…went right through and severed your jugular. You lost a lot of blood."

The flicker of painful images and sensations through their minds of her hand stemming the blood flow made both of them wince at the memory.

"And the Ketamine?" he asked eagerly, the sight of hope in his eyes foreign to both of them, "Did it work?"

"You tell me." She said with the softest smile, taking the now empty cup from his hand.

They each knew that the treatment was pretty much hit or miss, and the chances weren't as optimistic as 50:50.

"I... my leg...it…" he said softly his brow furrowed in concentration, "Everything hurts the same."

"Except when you try to nod your head." she said in a slightly condescending tone with humour in her eyes.

"Yeah, that." He said his eyebrows flicking in a mildly annoyed and sarcastic gesture that didn't involve moving his head.

It was then that she noticed that her hand was still on his shoulder.

Her eyes connected with his.

He could see the realisation and an uncomfortable feeling settle in them; he made her uncomfortable and he resented himself for it. He shouldn't have disturbed her when he saw her sitting comfortably. He shouldn't have disturbed her life at all but he had to push, he had to question, he had to solve a puzzle.

He felt her hand move slowly from his shoulder as she turned to set the cup on the bedside table.

"We'll just need to wait and see about the Ketamine I suppose," she said turning back to him and leaning against the bed, her hand inches from his. So close he could feel the warmth of her blood thrumming through those delicate fingers.

"You still want to fix me." he stated.

"You want to fix yourself." she said a hint of anger and hurt in her voice. "Cuddy thought I was crazy when I suggested Ketamine. She thought I was crazy for listening to you after you'd lost almost half your blood."

"I bet you were all sweet and innocent just to get what you wanted." he teased.

"What you wanted." she corrected in all seriousness, "And no, I wasn't sweet."

He would never know how close she came to losing her job at how not sweet she was.

She sighed heavily and her gaze dropped to somewhere outside in the darkness.

"I better let you get some rest." she said evenly, making to turn from him.

"Wait." he said his long fingers wrapping around her delicate wrist.

She turned back but still she would not look him in the eye.

His thumb brushed across her fast pulse until her gaze reached his, even then his stiff clumsy thumb continued to circle her wrist.

"Thank you."

"What for?"

For all she'd done. For all she would do. For the things that she made him feel. For being herself. For putting up with him. For the person she made him want to be. For being the one that made him forget.

For anything and everything but he didn't know how to say it.

So he shrugged.

Again it was a mistake.

Pain trembled through his neck and side; then shuddered through every muscle that had been moved.

He grunted and drew his bottom lip into his mouth and bit down until he could taste blood. He almost wanted to spit it back out with the thought of it running through someone else's veins; he'd be lucky if 20 percent of it was actually his.

As pain was replaced by tension he felt Cameron's hand on his shoulder once more. Tension ebbed away slowly as the warmth of her touch and the wonderfulness that was morphine spread through him. Some sense of normality returned and with it the realisation of how hard he was gripping her wrist.

His grip loosened but he did not break contact. His fingers wriggled softly against her skin in apology.

He watched as a small appreciative smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.

"Now what did I say about moving?" she asked with humour in her eyes.

"Not to?"

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Normally we can't get you to shut up, and you choose now to start communicating in gestures."

"What can I say? I'm a stubborn old bastard." he said with a lazy lethargic smile.

Pain and conversation had worn him out already and a morphine aided sleep was the perfect cure.

Through heavy lidded eyes he saw in her eyes that she was thinking about leaving. But he was somewhere between need and want when it came to her proximity. Despite, if not because of, the fact that he was weak at that very moment. Though he would not normally want anyone to see him this helpless, the fact that it couldn't be avoided gave him a twisted sort of opportunity.

He could always blame it on the drugs or the pain; but he wanted her there.

This was not at all like he'd imagined.

"Don't." he said his voice even and quiet. The single word somewhere between a plea and a command.

He didn't need to elaborate; she knew that he had an innate ability to sense what she was thinking.

"I'll stay a while." she said softly in comforting warm tone that lulled him further to the warm darkness that was slowly spreading over him.

"Where..." he whispered as his fingers moved more lazily as sleep threatened to take him. "... wake up?"

"Here." she said softly. "I'll be here when you wake up."

As his fingers stopped moving, relaxed as the sleep morphine haze began to seep through him. Her hand moved into his and her fingers wrapped around his large palm.

They both looked down at their joined hands.

Through half closed eyes he watched her fingers brush across the palm of his cane-calloused skin; her touch was soft and caring. He looked to her face and saw her almost mesmerized by the play of her fingertips across his rough skin.

More tension ebbed from him as he sank further into the gurney, her hand shifted at the slight movement and her gaze turned back to his.

He blinked lazily, the slightest smile on his lips as he closed his eyes for what would be almost 6 hours.

And as consciousness slipped away from him he felt a soft kiss on his brow and a whisper of Allison's soft voice.

"I'll always be here, Greg."

Warmth, darkness and something close to feeling at home seeped across him then he was gone from the real world to pass into a realm of dreamless sleep.

Maybe he could be comfortable if he cared about one person enough for the rest of the world not to matter.