Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to House, M.D.

Author's Note: This is one of two author's notes that will appear in this story - one at the beginning and one at the very end. After nearly two months of work, I'm finally ready to post this story. I thought about waiting until October, but I decided that posting for ten days in a row in May would have to be good enough. You can expect daily updates, to mimic the ten days of real time in the story.

You should know that the majority of this piece was written before House's Head/Wilson's Heart (still crying over those episodes, by the way), so the House/Wilson friendship is not on the rocks. This story can be set whenever you please, probably sometime after the fourth season, though the characters in my head are probably from season three (following the episode of "Informed Consent"). This piece will alternate by chapter between Wilson and Cameron, first person point of view.

Reviews are always appreciated. I love reading what you have to say. Since this piece is complete, I probably won't change it according to your ideas, unless you point out something really, drastically wrong that absolutely must be corrected. I still love hearing predictions though. Then I can gloat over already knowing what happens. (In a nice way, of course.)

Finally, there are two people that I absolutely must thank. First, Everybodylies17, my wonderful beta reader. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication to this story. Your work is very much appreciated. Second, Iamokota, my personal cheerleading section. Thank you for your inspiration and constant kind words that kept me going. You both rock!

And without further ado...Ten Days in October.

October 22. "Watching"

Have you ever watched someone die? I have. I have watched many people die. I have told people that they were going to die, and I have sat with them and waited for them to die. I have watched people die. I have sat by their bed sides, and held their hands, and watched them wither away to nothing. I have experienced death on more fingers than I can count on ten hands. Death is nothing new to me. Dying is nothing new to me.

What is new is that it's not someone I've just met. It's not someone I've only known for the past two months lying on that hospital bed becoming more emaciated by the day. It is someone I've diagnosed, but it's not someone whom I've met just because they were diagnosed with cancer. It's not a stranger. It's someone I know well – very well, actually.

It's my best friend.

I diagnosed my best friend with pancreatic cancer and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. It's not even just the fact that he's my best friend – it's that a pancreatic cancer diagnosis isn't really a diagnosis at all. There's no real prognosis for pancreatic cancer – the prognosis is death, and the diagnosis is a death sentence.

That was three weeks ago. Already I can feel him slipping further and further away from me. He's here, in this hospital, the only one that would ever hire him, lying so weak and pale on a lumpy hospital bed. It's unreal to believe that someone so sarcastic and full of life could be reduced to essentially nothing. I feel like I'm walking in someone else's life, and I wish that this could be some horrible nightmare that I'll eventually wake up from. Every day that goes by, I ask myself why it had to be him.

Why him, why my best friend? It's not even just that he's my best friend. I mean, that's bad enough, but I'm not just some oncologist with some best friend that I've diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I've diagnosed a world famous diagnostician, for crying out loud! Forget me, what about the rest of the world? What are they supposed to do without him?

I torture myself over these questions daily now. Sometimes I ask myself, and sometimes I ask whatever higher being happens to be out there. I guess it's sort of like deflection, you know, to think that I'm not the only one losing someone, even if I'm sharing the experience only with the vague population of the rest of the world. I don't want to play the pity card; I don't want to be the emotional best friend, unable to pull myself through life because my best friend is dying. I don't want to die with him, even though part of me knows that I've got to face death at some point. It's just – I didn't go into this profession to make death comfortable for people. I went into this profession to save people from death. And that I can't even save my own best friend…well, that kills me.

Just looking at him kills me. His cane, so long out of use now, hangs lifelessly over the side of a chair. I think we all know that the chances he'll ever have to use that cane again are slim, but we can't bring ourselves to remove it from his room. It's like a symbol, this chance, that he'll be able to use it again. It's our beacon of hope, even if it's just a pathetic piece of polished wood. I catch him staring at it on occasion, and I know that he's wondering the same thing. I see the deadened look flicker in his eyes, and I know that he's trying to gather his resolve, to mentally make himself get better, but the next second, I see only defeat. I know he feels it too.

I enter his room now. It's very late, but I just finished with my last patient…my second to last patient, actually. For he is always my last patient – the last one I see at night, and the first one I see in the morning. I've only been back to my apartment twice in the past week. I often fall asleep in the chair beside his bed, my head slumping uncomfortably down to my neck, but I don't mind.

The moonlight throws his face into sharp relief. Bathed in the moon's pale blue glow, he looks like a ghost, with his colorless face and his deep sunken eyes. He's sitting up in his bed tonight, which is a first. He's also awake, which is a surprise, given the late hour, but I'm not complaining. I smile at him as I enter the room and drop my bag onto the floor beside what we have long since designated as my chair.

"How are you?" I ask.

He turns his gaunt face to me and blinks once, twice, three times. "The food sucks," he says simply. His voice was a bit feebler than I would have liked, but I still caught some of his old personality shining through.

I feel my face break into a weak smile. "I'll see if I can bring you some coffee tomorrow…and maybe some real food if your stomach can handle it after the chemo."

He rolls his eyes. "Screw the chemo, just give me the damn food!"

I laugh, a real laugh this time, not a fake, forced one that has become my custom. It's not even all that funny what he said, but his forceful tone and demeanor shock me so much, I cannot help but laugh.

He leans back against the pillows and stares up at the ceiling. I check my watch; it's nearing eleven. I can feel him slipping away from me now, a combination of drugs and tiredness overcoming him, sleep calling to him. He closes his eyes and breathes in deeply. I listen to his breathing and the steady beep of the machines around him. He looks so peaceful when he's lying there sleeping. The pain he feels when he's awake seems to leave him in his sleeping moments, and I think that for once, he actually might be happy.

How long I sit there watching him, I do know not, but soon I feel my head beginning to drop down onto my chest. Resigned to the uncomfortable position, I shift around in my chair, trying to avoid the inevitable neck pain of tomorrow. I don't really mind though. Every piece of time is precious, and I will take as much as I can get with him. Every second counts now. I'm not going to pass any of them by.