House stayed in his uncomfortable position after Cuddy left, too stubborn to even ask for help even though he felt like he was going to pass out from the pain; 'Wilson will be back soon' he thought as he futilely tried to take in a few deep breaths.

Those damn doctors were screaming in his ear again, he was too tired to make an effort to ignore them…You know its cancer – you're gonna die; slowly and painfully…karma's a bitch!' House winced as he imagined himself being told 'it took too long to diagnose…it's spread…there's nothing we can do' by Wilson; it would be almost as humiliating as having him stick his finger up his – "Fuck" he groaned as he moved awkwardly onto his back once again.

Wilson returned within minutes with the ultrasound equipment; House had been steadily deteriorating within that time, but he still insisted on putting up a front to make Wilson believe that he was ok. The last thing he wanted was for Wilson to insist that all this was his fault and get all whiney on him; he picked up the chart that Wilson had left nearby and began scrawling on it.

"What if the Peritonitis wasn't from the ruptured appendix…?" House started as he waited for Wilson to set up the ultrasound equipment; Wilson looked up inquisitively, knowing that this was simply House thinking out loud and not expecting an answer yet. "What if the ruptured appendix was caused by the Peritonitis…the pressure built up, forced the appendix to become inflamed and sent off false smoke signals making us believe that the appendix was the cause of the pain…"

"You're thinking over productive Lymph nodes?" Wilson asked as he went over it in his mind, "Makes sense."

"Doesn't just make sense, it explains everything…serous fluid accumulating within the peritoneal cavity causing spontaneous bacterial peritonitis – which made everyone think it was a ruptured appendix." House said triumphantly before groaning and clutching his stomach again, "It's Ascites."

"It doesn't explain why your lymph nodes were enlarged in the first place…" Wilson said, raining on House's parade and getting an angry look from him for doing so.

"Fine…" House said moodily as he frowned in concentration, "How about a nice case of Gastroenteritis…which then blows up the patient's lymph nodes like balloons and makes them work harder than Cameron in a room full of cancer kids...Mesenteric adenitis." House said eagerly whilst holding his stomach as though it would burst, "then all that pressure forces the appendix to rupture and the patient doesn't recover, even after having his appendix removed."

"Okay…that does make some sense…but can you stop referring to yourself in the third person – it's really confusing." Wilson said as he passed House the gel for the scan; he didn't particularly want to rub gel over House after what he had done to him earlier…things could get weird!

Luckily House had other ideas about the scan and took over completely by performing the test himself; Wilson sighed and resigned himself to simply looking at the screen, hoping the answer would jump right out at them. 'Please don't be cancer…' both men were thinking, although neither of them would say it out loud.

"How much blood was drained when they took out my appendix?" House asked suspiciously as he ran the receiver over his abdomen with a shaking hand; he was unsuccessfully suppressing moans as he tried to look over Wilson's shoulder at the screen.

"A lot…almost 3 pints" Wilson said, taking the receiver from House's hand and gently pushing him down; performing the test himself was clearly putting strain on his abdominal muscles and was causing his breathing to become laboured again. "Respiratory distress can develop with tense ascites!" he said defensively as he held the receiver out of House's reach; he felt like he was stealing a bone from a hungry dog.

"Fine…see any strange masses…scalpels…car keys…tumours?" House asked weakly as he faced the ceiling; he was beginning to feel light headed again and he wasn't sure if it was because he was tired or because he was, in fact, finding it difficult to breathe as Wilson predicted. 'Oh God, how can I feel dizzy when I'm lying down…c'mon, don't pass out again…breathe you idiot!'

"You okay?" Wilson asked cautiously when he found his friend's silence disconcerting enough to worry him. He turned from the screen to look at House, who was still facing the ceiling and struggling to get enough air; he saw him swallow before he mumbled something about falling asleep and the O2 sats monitor starting beeping wildly…

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"Why don't we just go home; House isn't going to die – he's far too stubborn to do it when none of us are there for him to taunt!" Chase whined as he poured himself an extra strong mug of coffee; being up at 1AM wasn't doing anything for his patience for their patient!

"What would you think if House gave that reasoning every time he wanted to leave for the night when we've got a patient we can't figure out?" Cameron asked angrily as she stormed over to the whiteboard, "don't you think he'd work through the night to figure out what's wrong if it was you in that hospital bed?"

"No, I'm pretty sure he'd just let me die." Chase laughed as he balanced himself on the chair with his legs up on the glass table; Cameron gave him a death glare, he wasn't sure if he was supposed to be scared or amused at how much she looked like she wanted to throttle him right now.

"Knowing him, he's probably cured himself and this is some kind of test to see if we can come up with the right diagnosis too…" Foreman said warily before he put his hands up in defence from Cameron, "I'm just saying – it wouldn't surprise me!"

"It's real." Cuddy said from the doorway, startling the three young doctors, "he's in agony – even he can't hide that much pain…what are your first thoughts?" she asked sadly, noting the clean whiteboard as she joined them for the differential.

"He shot down all of our ideas-"

"We need to get an ultrasound of his abdomen to see what's going on in there." Cameron said, interrupting Chase's whining.

"Wilson's on it as we speak." Cuddy said quickly, seeing the frowns the ducklings gave to each other; "he refused to let anyone else do it-"

"Does he think its cancer?" Cameron asked, concern dripping from every word.

"I've told Wilson to page me when the scan is complete." Cuddy said, completely ignoring Cameron's question because she wasn't sure if she wanted to believe that her chief diagnostician could have cancer…

"It could be his liver…" Foreman said as he went over to the board to write it down, "He didn't exactly put up any argument as to why it couldn't be his liver."

"He knows that it's a possibility." Cuddy admitted, "He also knows that it will come back in the blood tests tomorrow..."

"So we've narrowed it down to cancer or his liver…well no wonder he wasn't too pleased with our consult earlier." Chase said emphatically, "He's on antibiotics…we should wait and see if it clears up on his own-"

"What – and just leave him in unbearable pain until then?" Cameron asked furiously.

"He's always in pain, I'm sure he can handle a stomach ache to go with the pain in his leg – at least 'till morning." Chase said unsympathetically as he scooted off the chair and put his jacket on. "Knowing House, he's probably got a bad case of Gastro-" he stopped halfway through putting his coat on which caused the other three doctors to give him a questioning look.

"Gastroenteritis!" Chase exclaimed, which just added to the confusion on the others' faces.

"What, you're thinking he really does have a stomach bug?" Cuddy asked disbelievingly; 'maybe Chase should go home – he's obviously more tired than I thought…'

Chase grabbed the board marker off Foreman and almost sent him flying with an over enthusiastic shove which was meant to guide him away from the whiteboard. He started to write down what he thought were the main points; 'Gastroenteritis…Enflamed Lymph Nodes – Mesenteric Adenitis…Spontaneous Peritonitis…'

"The surgeon was under the impression that the Peritonitis was due to the appendix rupture-" Chase explained seeing that the others were slightly apprehensive about trusting his unusual Housian-like behaviour, "It was actually a development of the Ascites-"

"So…if we treat the Mesenteric adenitis, then he'll make a full recovery-" Cuddy stated slowly, starting to understand what Chase was trying to say.

"He'll probably need surgery to reduce the ascites – preferable before he goes into respiratory arrest." Chase said as Cuddy stood and made her way over to the phone.

"He's okay for the minute, he's with Wilson…"

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Wilson wasted no time in dropping the receiver on House's stomach, causing him to flinch feebly; he grabbed a nearby O2 mask and silently cursed himself for not noticing House's rapid decline; maybe if House had actually said something in the first place, especially a few days ago, neither of them would be in this position...'yeah, just blame House – that makes everything alright!' Wilson thought gingerly as he gently slapped House's cheek, bringing him back from lala land.

"House, wake up – you were right…" Wilson said, hoping that this would make House fight the cloak of unconsciousness that threatened to envelope him, "there's a small volume of ascites."

"Cool…" House said unexcitedly through the O2 mask; his eyes drooping slightly as he desperately tried to stay awake, 'guess I was right about the gastroenteritis' he thought indolently.

"House, stay with me – I've forgotten what you said it was..." Wilson lied, hoping that maybe this would keep House awake now that slapping him round the face didn't seem to be doing much.

"You idiot…it was gastro-"

"Gastroenteritis, right…" Wilson said relieved that House wouldn't let him get away with forgetting that easily; even if he did look worse now than he had before they'd started the procedure. "You want me to continue?" he asked when House managed to open his eyes fully.

House nodded tiredly, he rolled his eyes as Wilson picked up the receiver which had spread the gooey gel all over House's bed and Wilson couldn't help but chuckle dryly.

"You know, you should have let me do this before you had to jump straight in with your differential earlier…" Wilson muttered as he felt House tense up under the receiver.

"I wanted to see if I could guess what it was first…" House said softly as his body relaxed slightly, the O2 mask actually making all the difference in helping him breathe…funny that!

"You make it sound like some sort of game. If you win, you get to solve another puzzle – have you even thought of what happens if you lose?" Wilson asked irately as he froze when a dark spot showed up on the screen, 'damn, he was right…again'

"Pessimist." House muttered as he raised his head to see why Wilson had paused; "looks like ascites…guess I don't lose…" He said weakly as he cocked his head to see Chase jogging up to his room. "What do you want?" He asked, though the question was barely audible through the mask; either that or Chase had frozen to the spot in the doorway and was unable to reply.

Chase hovered in the doorway feeling like he'd stumbled onto something personal; he stood gawping at his boss laying, partially covered by a sheet, with an O2 mask being held over his mouth and his stomach covered in gel while Wilson sat on the edge of the bed holding the receiver on his abdomen. "What do you want?" the irate question came again, pulling Chase out of his trance.

"I – err I mean, we know what's wrong with you…" Chase stuttered, wishing that he'd sent someone else in before he'd arrived.

House rolled his eyes when Wilson looked at him with an expectant look on his face; clearly House was desperate to know what his ducklings had come up with but was enjoying Chase's obvious discomfort at approaching his boss in such strange conditions.

"What is it?" Wilson asked covering House up as he saw the other two ducklings approaching; House appreciated the action as he could go back to his curled up on his side position much to Wilson's annoyance, "there's gel everywhere" he hissed quietly, to which he got an unconcerned shrug.

"It's Mesenteric Adenitis – developed from Gastroenteritis and causing spontaneous peritonitis." Chase said nervously as Cameron and Foreman entered and stood looking doubtful.

"Excellent diagnosis...very catchy too" House mumbled through the mask as he held a hand up to press it tighter over his mouth.

The declaration left Chase, Cameron and Foreman speechless and they looked to Wilson for confirmation that their boss had finally accepted a diagnosis from them with no arguments; Wilson smirked and pointed to House's chart which was laying, face down, on the end of the bed.

The ducklings all craned their necks to see what was scrawled on it; 'spontaneous peritonitis, lymph nodes over productive and gastroenteritis' stood out the most to the three young doctors.

"He knew?" Cameron asked accusingly as she stared at the hunched over form of her mentor, who had turned away from them and was concentrating on breathing again.

"He only figured it out after you'd left." Wilson reassured.

"Chase figured it out." Foreman said to House, "We thought you were putting it on to get out of clinic."

"Cuddy has scheduled you in for surgery to reduce the fluid in your abdomen; you'll have difficulty breathing until then…" Cameron said; keen to add her input to the case.

House rolled his eyes lazily and lifted the O2 mask to address his 'would-be saviour', "Don't worry, you still get your bonus points…I suggest you save them for when I'm feeling in a particularly bad mood, they're like 'get out of jail free' cards."

"How will I tell the difference?" Chase muttered as he made an effort to look grateful for the praise, if you could call it that; he deduced that 'get out of jail free' card could be translated into 'get out of clinic free' or 'get out of having to perform the most humiliating test on a patient free' card – lucky him!

"You get a point knocked off if you wrote on my whiteboard." House added when he'd inhaled a few more gulps of air.

The grateful look fell instantly and was replaced with a scowl as Chase made a mental note to wipe the board clean before House stepped foot back in the conference room; which, knowing House, would be as soon as he got bored of being the patient…

The End…

Thanks for reading!