Just my Imagination: Wilson visits House, AU and Alternate ending, and major spoilers for Both Sides Now. Do not read if you haven't seen that episode! My usual warnings, child abuse, slash, other stuff in later chapters. Also I sort of changed the timeline from what was on the show so that they could meet earlier in life.

"Ooh, her love is heavenly;
when her arms enfold me,
I hear a tender rhapsody...
but in reality, she doesn't even know me.
Just my imagination –once again—

running away with me.
Tell you it was just my imagination
running away with me," Whitfield and Strong

"They tell me you stopped eating," I said, sitting down beside House, looking into his pained eyes and hating myself for letting him wind up in a place like this. He meets my eyes for all of thirty seconds before going back to work on a drawing on the table in front of him. It showed a little boy, lying on his side, curled up, unhappily, on the ground. He's outside surrounded by grass and trees and bushes, and the dark purple sky is doted with half a dozen tiny stars. There was some shadowy figure standing over the boy but it was faceless, shapeless, unidentifiable. "That's really—is that you?" He still didn't respond. "I'm sorry; I know you must hate this place. I promise, once things are more under control you can come home, and I'll take care of you. Cook your favorite foods every day and every night, sit with you, okay?" Greg shook his head. "What? Should I—I know you wanna go home now, but we can't…" He finally spoke.

"You can't spend however long I've got left taking care of me. Even if I can get this under control. You don't—I am not your responsibility," he said, putting a crayon down. We both watched as it rolled across the table and onto the floor. I placed my hand over his, squeezing gently. "And I eat plenty. They just think I need more, but I'd still be eating the same amount if I was at home." At this point he didn't pull away, but part of me wondered if he wanted me to let go.

"You're right I don't have to take care of you, but I can't imagine you spending the rest of your life in this place. Well, actually I can, if the rest of your life is going to be less than a year. I'm not offering to do this because I think I have to. There's no reason for me to not to. You are miserable, and in pain, and sick, and scared. If I were in that position, I wouldn't even bother. But you're here, you're fighting and deserve to be with somebody who understands, who loves you. And that is always going to be me. That's why I kept trying to sabotage things when I thought you had—that's why I'm here. That's why I'm going to stay with you, whether it's here, at home, or in a little cottage in the South of France." Greg let a small, weak smile form on his lips. "I brought you a Ruben." He nodded again, but didn't say anything. "Want it?"

"I won't ask you to give up everything for me." The way he said that last word, made it sound like he thought of himself as completely worthless. Greg's face was suddenly filled with anger and frustration. He knew that I knew, and he hated it. He tried to pull the dropped item closer with his left foot, but couldn't quite get the thing.

"It's okay, I won't tell anybody—and that was the absolute worst possible response, right? Sorry, I'm just. I'm having a little trouble dealing with this right now, and I don't know what to do or how to do it." He leaned down, picked up the crayon and went back to ignoring me. "How about we don't' talk about that right now? I brought us sandwiches. We're gonna eat them, and then you're gonna complain about the idiots who work here, and the uncomfortable bed they're making you sleep in, and we're gonna go to your room and watch General Hospital together, and then I'm gonna sit in a chair all night, because I told them that you're going to start to get better, faster if you have me around."

"Part of me is really glad that you're here, especially after you just said all that stuff but I'm—the rest of me is…I ca—ca—I can't," he, stammered. He thinks I'm a hallucination, I realized almost instantly. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling his body into my arms, and holding on as tightly as I could.

"We're gonna figure out, okay? I'm real, and I'm here because I love you. And I have proof, okay?' House sat awkwardly, without lifting his head, almost as if he were terrified to look at me again. He thinks you're going to disappear, or turn into a monster, or worse. He didn't cry, although his chest was heaving. "It's okay. Here, look, wallet, driver's license, Blockbuster Card, MasterCard, and look," I whispered, reaching into the photo pocket and pulling out a snap shot of the two of us. The photo was almost as old as our relationship, and had been taken by my mother, when I introduced him to my family. Greg was a second year intern, I a third year medical student, each of us on vacation. He was smiling because we had just emerged from my old bedroom, where we had kissed for the first time. I was smiling because I'd known the guy for eight months, and had been madly in love with him the entire time, but never imagined he might feel the same way, and I knew that the kiss was going to be the beginning of something huge and wonderful. We had a secret, we were happy, and we were together, and I thought it was going to last forever. "Remember that day?" He shrugged. "This isn't helping, is it?" Once again he simply stared at the paper, pressing down on the crayon with all his strength. "Alright, we'll figure this out too. Do you wanna ask someone else if I'm really here?"

"There's a candy striper with really big tits over there," he said, nodding with his chin. I smiled, looking up. It was true, and to make things worse, she was wearing low cut, tight fitting tank top. "She... I've—call her over?" I did. House asked the woman if she could see me. Her eyes got misty for half a second before she assured him that I was in fact sitting in the chair beside him. "Okay."

"Okay you believe me, or okay it doesn't matter anymore," I asked, once the woman was out of earshot. Greg—it took me a moment to understand why—held up his index finger. "Good, because I'm real, and while I might short sheet your bed, I would never try and trick you like that." He sniggered a little, and started to look around. "Hungry?" He nodded, and I went up to the front desk, got our lunch, brought it back, moved his drawing, and set out the sandwiches. "That's it," I whispered, unsure whether I wanted him to hear me and make fun of it, or if I didn't want him to hear it because it might hurt or upset him.

"I might be crazy but that doesn't actually change who I am," he told me, pulling at bits of crust and dropping them to the side. "You don't have to treat me any differently than you usually do. In fact, I want you to treat me normally. I want you to be my best friend, the guy who barfed in my face when I dragged him on the Rolling Thunder, at Six Flags and then kept trying to convince me that he really did like roller coasters, the guy who brings two lunches to work 'cuz he knows I'm probably gonna steal or spit in one, the guy who sawed through my cane in the middle of the night because I put his hand in pot of warm water, the guy who makes me feel like I'm only in this place because it's a nice vacation spot." I smiled, taking his hand again, and watching his face for a reaction. "So, how lame was that?"

"Not half as lame as the speech I made, professing my love for you after you got shot." House looked mildly interested in that, which is more than I can say for the Ruben. "If the meds are causing stomach problems, I can get you some antacids or something—and you're looking at me like I'm an idiot, so I'll shut up and let you tell me what's going on."

"You're a little late for lunch. If I had known you were bringing me edible food, I wouldn't have choked down the crap that they gave me." I kissed his cheek, and picked up the rest of his food.

"In that case why don't we save it for later?" He shrugged. I felt terrible. I could have been here an hour earlier if I hadn't stopped at the hospital, if I hadn't run into Cuddy. Of course, the food thing wasn't what was really bothering me. I felt bad because my best friend and lover had gone from being slightly off and fun, to this without me noticing.

"You're blaming yourself for my winding up like this," he said with a sigh, after a minute or two of silence. I don't know what I expected to see, visiting him for the first time after his being admitted but this wasn't it. Danny and I hadn't seen each other for decades and I'd missed him but I felt almost nothing when I saw him. But with Greg, it was like one of us had gone out of town for the weekend and we were just catching up. Aside from the man hunched over in the corner talking to himself, and the fact that House looked more tied and ragged than usual, nothing seemed to have changed. It was almost like he wasn't even in a mental hospital. I nodded, ashamed of how I felt, considering how sick he was, and how horrible that must have made him feel. You selfish bastard, I thought, your best friend is going through Hell, and you're foisting your own emotional crap onto him. "You can't even control how much Vicodin I take; how are you supposed to control my brain chemistry?"

"You saw it and I didn't," I reminded him, trying to be gentle. "I never considered that it might be anything besides the pills. I did those tests to indulge you, but I didn't take them seriously. And I called you—I was so horrible to you when you needed me. That's what I feel guilty about, Greg; not your condition. I know I didn't make you sick."

"And yet you feel guilty about it," he said, half mocking, half concerned. "Jimmy." House pouted. "It's like you said, we're gonna figure this out. I'm gonna be okay, sort of. And at least we figured out what was happening before I did anything too dangerous. Besides, I thought it was the pills too. Why do you think I was stalling so much?" You didn't want to detox. I wrapped my arms around him again, but this time he struggled a bit but, after a minute, he calmed down a little and let me hold him, while I whispered I love you, over and over.

An hour passed, maybe two, and I started to calm down. He was starting to do better and so, I decided once again to try and talk to him about something that was concerning me. I picked up his drawing and pulled it closer to us.

"Can you tell me about this," I asked, one arm still wrapped around his shoulders, the two of us sitting on chairs in the day room. He responded with a shrug, but I saw something in his eyes, a little bit of shame, and a lot of fear. "Are you talking to your doctor? Because, I might not be able to help you yet—but they know what they're doing and it sucks, but I need you to give this a try. Even if it's just for me."

"Shut up. You're more annoying than the hallucinations," he snapped, only it wasn't really him snapping at me. He was uncomfortable and didn't want to have this conversation. House was hoping that he could avoid talking about what was happening to him by shifting my attention to something else. His idea would have worked on anybody else, but I knew beter. I think he was trying to see whether or not I was capable of acting like everything was normal. "Please talk to me?"

"What do you want me to say," he asked, trying to yank the piece of paper out of my hand. I patted his back gently. "Seriously, I don't know how to do this." If it weren't so sad, it would have been funny. He actually needed me to tell him what to say.

"You can start by telling me what's going on, and why you—I mean, uh, how you…just anything. There really isn't any right way," I told him, but I was pretty sure Greg didn't believe me. "What's this," I asked, pointed to the dark shadowy figure. He tended to do better in emotional situations if I asked him specific questions so he could give me specific answers, rather than having to sort through forty odd years of traumas.

"I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count. Oh and the bastard used to be married to my mother." I sighed, and touched the side of his face with my free hand. "Maybe that was a tiny bit too mean. I dunno. Been thinking that, since I'm here, might as well try dealing with my—personality quirks too."

"I think that's a really good idea," I told him, kissing his temple, because I didn't know what to do except be tender with him. "So that's you?" I pointed to the little boy. He nodded. Greg had hinted at the abuse on numerous occasions, but had never come right out and told me exactly what his father had done. "You're not seeing monsters are you?" He shook his head. Thank god for small miracles. "And the meds…they're working?"

"Eh," he said, twisting his hand back and forth. "I'm a little less confused, and it's getting easier to ignore—you know, jut don't feel much better. I thought something would change. Doctor says that's not unusual. First part is easy to treat, but the real issue—doesn't matter," he explained, tiredly. Have you been sleeping, I wondered, and apparently my worried face showed. "Sort of," he explained, as if reading my mind. "Maybe I lied in the sleep lab and I don't—and I can sleep with you watching."

"You don't do so well when I'm not around," I asked and started to rub tiny circles on his back and shoulders, as gently as I could. He shrugged again. "I shouldn't of listened when you said you could do this all by yourself, huh?" Again, he barely responded. "I love you, and I don't care how long you're in this place; I will never leave you. I will never forget you, alright? We're still friends, and I still love you."

"And I'm still gonna live happily ever after," he snarked. Well, it's nice to see that somethings never change. "I'm not afraid that you're gonna leave me, or rather I know that if you go away for a little while, you'll always come back. Our friendship—or whatever this is—made it through last summer, pretty sure we can make it through me having to spend time in the funny farm. Though it's gotta be tough, me losing it right now, so shortly after the prodigal brother returned." Once more he was trying to provoke a response out of me. I just wasn't sure what he thought I'd do. When I remained calm and understanding, he apologized again. "Don't know why I keep doing that."

"Because I don't treat you like everybody else does. I don't hate you, I don't yell at you just for acting like yourself, and I don't expect you to change, but they do. I love you just the way you are, and you don't think that's possible. You wanna make me act the way the rest of them do because then it's not you, it's us. But if I'm nice to you," I started to say, but didn't have to finish. We'd had this conversation a hundred times. And yet he never seemed to believe me.

"If—how long is this gonna last?" I don't know, I thought, as my mind kept picturing him standing in front of the door, as he turned around and stared at me desperately, longingly. I thought, I should have gone with him. I shouldn't have listened when he said he was okay to do this by himself. It was a miracle he hadn't run away. "Jimmy," he whispered, touching my face and then wrapping me in his arms. "You keep saying everything's gonna be okay, and—maybe you're right. Maybe." I smiled a little, patting him on the back.

"You are amazing. I'm—you're in this place and you need me. I come to visit and get all weak and needy and sad and then you, you're strong for me. You're like. You were the only one who treated me normally after Amber died. I pretended like I hated that, but honestly. If it weren't for you, I probably would have ended up in one of these places." House rolled his eyes but he went with me when I stood up, and started down the hall. Luckily I had been able to get him a private room, so I got him set up with the TV remote and promised I'd be right back. Then, I went to the nurse's station, and told them to make sure everyone stayed away from us for a while. I wasn't planning on sex or anything, but I knew he wouldn't want anybody to walk in on him crying, or whatever. They all agreed, and I walked back. "Okay, I'm all yours and…we have a couple of hours to chill before they have to come in and give your evening meds."

"Shh, I don't wanna miss this. It sounds important." I smiled, weakly and stood beside him watching the TV screen. "Here," he said, quietly, as he scooted over just enough to make room for me. I smiled, and sat beside him, wrapping my arm around his shoulders again. He lay beside me, the back of his head pressed against my shoulder as he stared at the fake doctors on TV, while I stared at him. I thought about the car ride up here, how he hadn't said a word and I had had just let him do that. I saw him again, on the stairs, looking back, his eyes begging me to come with, and me turning away.

The second the door had closed, I climbed into my car, leaned the seat back, curled up on my side and started sobbing. I felt like he'd died. I still had all of House's stuff in my hands. Bring him back, I'd begged. Give him back! Bad enough you did this to him, but God damnit don't you make him stay in this shit hole. I'll bring him home. I'll take care of him; he's mine. I love him and he's mine! Now give him back! Have him turn around and race back to me and I'll never ever let anything hurt him again. Nothing happened and I'd gone home alone, even though I wanted to rush inside and hold him and never ever let go.

I might be able to convince the doctors he'd do better at home once he was stronger, but at this point, he needed to be here. I felt my own chest growing tighter, tears burning behind my eyes. "Hey Jimmy?" House touched my face again, intrigued and concerned. "If you need to cry or something, you should do it. I'm not gonna freak out," he told me, bravely. I managed an extremely small, pathetic smile, and I hugged him back.

"I'm okay," I lied. He squinted at me and frowned, as if to say, that's my line. "I've been crying on and off since I dropped you off. You're right, though. I'm not okay, but I don't hafta cry in front of you. Unless it'll make you—unless it'll help you. Would it help? No, okay. Nevermind," I promised, kissing his temples again. "Your show's back on." Greg looked away, but not at the screen. "Maybe we can both cry together." He shrugged, head turned somewhat towards me but his eyes were focused on someone or something in the distance. "House?"

"Make it stop," he whispered, almost inaudible, turning onto his stomach so he could burry his face in my shirt. I felt his body shudder in my arms, but he kept trying to stop himself, he kept stopping himself. I'm here, I thought, but wasn't sure it would help. So, I kissed the top of his head, and rubbed his back and shoulders, and I let my own guards down, so we were both in the same place. "'They' aren't monsters yet, but it's only a matter of time," he whispered and I couldn't do anything except make a soft sobbing sound. Take me, I thought. Do this to me, not him. Something wet started to spread across my chest. "They always turn into monsters." That one hit me really hard, made me more worried about him than I had been.

"This happened to you before," I asked, rubbing his shoulders some more, and trying to lift his face just enough so he could look me in the eyes, so I could try and see what was going on in his head. "That one is important. Has this happen to you before?"

"Only in dreams, and once when I dropped acid," he muttered, face pressed even deeper into my shoulder. "Don't you think I would have told you if I were hallucinating all the time? I told you about this even though I knew you'd send me here." Greg was quiet once again for a little while. "I'm such an idiot," he practically whimpered after what felt like an eternity. I made a soft sound like shh, not that it helped. "How could I ever think that she would do anything with me?"

"Hmm, maybe because she kissed you a couple of months ago and has been in love with you for twenty years," I taunted, running my hand through his hair, softly. He looked up for about two seconds. "Sorry, that was rude, and cruel, and completely uncalled for."

"Yeah," House said, with a small sigh. I felt horrible. I kissed his hair, and was about to apologize. He lifted his face again, a clever little smile on his face, and then he winked at me. "I loved it." We both laughed. "I said it before, but obviously you weren't listening. I don't want you to treat me differently, which is gonna be hard but—you're the only one who doesn't think I'm an obnoxious freak, and I like that, as pathetic as it might be." That doesn't make you pathetic; it makes you human.That's when he kissed me, not a long kiss, and he kept his mouth closed, but a kiss nonetheless. "And I don't want this to change too much either. I like being—whatever we are."

"I'm not sure how we're gonna—I'm not…I don't. I can't do that with you right now, not in here, but I will…once you're feeling better. Once my dead girlfriend isn't standing over your shoulder. Once you know what's real, and what isn't, okay?" House nodded, silently. "I love what we are. I love the feeling of you inside of me, of your lips on mine, of your breath on the nape of my neck. But I don't wanna add to your confusion, or your pain, I'm sorry if that feels like rejection. I just…" Luckily he cut me off before I made too big a fool of myself.

"It doesn't. I know what you're doing, or trying to do and I sort of like. I sort of want—it helps me figure out that you're the real you. Even the best figment of my imagination wouldn't try and protect me like you do." I smiled, and blushed, pressing my lips against his forehead. "If you were rejecting me you wouldn't have shown up when you thought I wasn't eating."

"You did that on purpose," I croaked, as the realization hit me all of the sudden. "You know, the next time you wanna see me; just say something and I'll be right there. Anytime, day or night. I don't care if it's 4:00 in the morning or 2:00 in the afternoon, or anytime in between. I will come. You don't have to trick me, or play mind games. Okay?" Once again, he barely said or did anything. The guy shrugged, rolled onto his side, pressed right up against me, and went back to watching TV.

"You made me miss my soap," he said, trying to sound mopey, but not quite pulling it off. "You're gonna hafta pay for that." I felt myself smiling, warmth filling up my chest.

"Howdo you wanna make me do that,"I asked, gazing into his clever blue eyes and watching as his thoughts grew more and more complex and intense.

"I'm sure we can think of something that fulfills my requirement, and doesn't make you or me or the dead people uncomfortable." He giggled. Good one.

"At least you're comfortable enough to be able to make fun of yourself. Makes my life a whole lot easier. If I had to tiptoe around all the eggshells that represent your problem areas, I'd—well, um. Let's just pretend I said the first two sentences and forget about the stupid eggshell metaphor that I totally screwed up." He smiled and shrugged. "So what are you okay with?" Another shrug, followed by Greg rolling back onto his stomach, landing on top of me, as he inhaled deeply, face pressed right up against my shirt. I was starting to worry when he undid the top three buttons, and started kissing all over my chest, mainly because it was only a matter of time before I did something that would make this situation even more difficult to diffuse. Then, he stopped, slid back over to my side, and looked up at me smiling.

He said, "You are way too easy," and let out a tiny laugh. A minute went by. I sat in silence, still trying to not let him see just how worried and hurt and scared I was, while he remained oblivious and (almost) happy. "Still owe me though, but if you brought me a present, I might be more willing to forgive you for making me miss my show, especially if it's a really good one." House wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeve even though the tears were long since gone. I offered to get up and grab a warm, wet washcloth to clean up his face, which he agreed to, begrudgingly. Then, a nurse came in with his evening meds and told us that dinner was in fifteen minutes. I looked at my watch, mostly because I didn't feel like it was that late. 5:15. "Feel like I'm in kindergarten. Even have a bedtime."

"If they break the rules for you, they have to break them for everybody else, and at first it's just the bedtimes but then it's eating in your room, skipping group therapy or individual sessions, or," I started to say, but he interrupted me with another kiss, a very small, very quick kiss. "I know it sucks. How about, while I'm here tonight and for any other night I spend in with you, we can pretend like you're going to bed but you and I can stay up and whisper to each other, or you can read, or draw, or…whatever." Greg smiled, and all but giggled.

"I thought we'd just ruled that out," he taunted, smiling huge. I shrugged. I'm all alone; it's kinda hard not to get horny, especially when the guy I had been getting it from has to be taken away by the men with butterfly nets. "How'd you get everyone to leave us alone? They're supposed to do checks four times an hour."

"Because I told them to leave us alone, and let me take care of you, or else you'd sign out AMA, which—in case you get any ideas—we're not going to do."

"I know." House took a long drink of water before continuing. "Been having wicked dry mouth ever," he explained. I didn't have to tell him that it was a side effect of one, if not more, of his new medications.

"How's your leg," I asked. I didn't wait for his answer before I started massaging his thigh, very lightly, high enough above the scar to keep from hurting him, but pretty close.

"It's been worse, but it was better when I had more control over what I took and when—" he started to say, but cut himself off. And how much you took. I didn't need to hear him say it out loud to know that they were giving him significantly fewer Vicodin here than he'd be taking on his own. "And I still want my present," he demanded, making a tiny little pouty face. I smiled. Who wouldn't smile when he tried to charm them? It was adorable, and it actually worked on me because I knew that he meant almost every single nice thing he ever said to me, and very few of the mean and sarcastic ones. I was (and still am, I hope) his go to guy, his problem solver, etc, etc.

"Okay," I gave in after a couple of minutes of him making the 'I'm such a poor, pathetic, unhappy, needy, sad, scared, crippled little boy' face. "I did get you a present. But it's in the car, I'm hoping you'd be able to keep it but I wasn't sure. We'll have to see. Hey, you gonna be okay if I get up for a minute?" Greg rolled his eyes and grunted. "I need you to tell me if you're not, okay? Anytime you're not, I'll—"

"Be right over, yeah I know. You already told me that like fifty times. Granted forty two of them were before you found out just how big of a psycho I am, but you've keep on saying it, which makes me think that there aren't gonna be nearly as many changes in my relationship with you as there are in my—whatever—with the rest of the world. Not to mention the not being able to work anymore thing." House wouldn't admit it, but he was going to hate giving up his job. He might complain about it nonstop, might do anything he could to avoid clinic duty, but not a day that went by, where he didn't rush up to my office with a funny story, or an exciting object that he'd removed from someone's…well, body. And when he was working on a real case, we'd go home at the end of the day and all he could talk about was the patient, their symptoms, treatment, his team's reactions/ mistakes, and his own brilliant ideas. Giving that up forever would actually be worse, I believed, than giving up his pain meds.

I stood up, waiting at his side for a moment, ran my hand through his hair quickly, and then walked back to my car. It wasn't much, and I was pretty sure he wouldn't like any of the things I'd brought him, but it was the best I could do in this situation. Greg was sitting up in bed, looking a little excited, even though I had explained that they wasn't really a present, but just some of his things from home. When I entered the room, however, he still looked mildly disappointed at the armload of photographs, a watch, and a couple of his toys and balls. I smiled weakly and sat back down beside him.

"You mind telling me why there's a clock in every room in your apartment, including the bathroom, and why you have a box with enough watches to wear one on each arm every day for a month and still not see the same watch twice?" He shrugged. "Do you really want me to try and figure it out on my own? You're really good at these sort of deductions while I suck at them." More shrugging. "So, anyway, I figured you might like to have a watch. This one's new. I dunno if you'll like it or now, but this glows in the dark. I thought it was cool. His arm shot out and at first I thought he was trying to hit me, but the guy was asking me to put it on him. "There are some pictures, just the stuff you had up around your apartment that I thought they wouldn't mind. Now, I had to take them out of the frames, so anything that looked rare or like a collectable I left alone. I didn't wanna risk losing anything you think is important." He smiled, like he was preparing to laugh, then stopped himself, and nodded. "Hey you're the one who complained to me about the record Hector ate."

"That was an original Sun Record—nevermind no point in trying to explain something to you if you don't have any idea what I'm talking about to begin with." He took the rest of the photographs out of my hands, leafing through them. "I can keep these? Here?" I nodded, trying to brush back a bit of hair that was sticking up. The first photo was a larger copy of the one I keep in my wallet. He smiled and put it to one side. The next picture was an album cover that I didn't recognize and this was placed to the side of the other image. He organized the rest of the pictures into two piles, returning the alum cover and a couple of pictures that I suspected he had probably used as pornography, although they could technically be considered art. The rest were pictures contained a picture I had taken of Steve McQueen, the rat, who was climbing on the side of the cage as if trying to reach up and wave, a couple of me, or him and me, and a photograph of an 70-something-year-old woman who looked sort of like House's mom—his grandmother, I assumed—his mother at maybe 40, and Greg, on his 7th birthday, huddled around a cake. It was the only picture of him I'd seen where the guy looked truly happy. He smiled sometimes, and seemed content with his current situation, but there was always this sadness too, in and around his eyes. "Help me tape 'em up, or something?" I smiled and we put the pictures on the wall behind his bed. "So what, they don't trust me with picture frames?"

"I said it before but obviously you weren't paying attention. The rules are there to protect people who aren't as uniquely rational as you, and if they let you get away with having a picture frame, then other people are gonna ask for special treatment and pretty soon someone's gonna use their special privilege to hurt themselves or someone else. It's not personal. Like the shoelaces." I knew we were heading for a rationalism argument.

"Oh come on, nobody's gone for that old clichéd in ages and besides if someone wants to die bad enough, they'll find a way. Doesn't matter where they are or how careful everyone around them is. T-shirt works just as good as belt, or a rope. Hell, you can die from taking to much Aspirin. But you already know that. The rules aren't made to keep people like me safe; they're to protect the asses of the people who run these places. An inmate tunnels out of jail with a soup spoon…well, nobody could have seen that coming but if he gets his hands on a gun and shoots a guard—" he muttered. Unfortunately, he only went on tirades like that when he was angry or frustrated or something. I sat beside him, again and gave him my hand to squeeze but he wasn't interested. "I just can't imagine the rest of my life like this. You know I'm not gonna be able to have sex anymore. That's a wonderful side effect of the new meds. Never understood why they didn't try and work out that particular kink. Stuff's been around for decades."

"Because people are terrified of psych patients. They want you too tired to get out of bed and incapable of getting an erection, otherwise there might be paranoid, angry, screaming, delusional nut jobs running around raping the good, normal, happy folk."

"There's only one problem with that," he started to say but we both already knew what he wanted to add. I gave him the 'I know' look, and he gave in. Once on the meds, the delusions and hallucinations go away. They also often experience painful, debilitating side effects. Greg looked straight ahead, and moved on to another point. "If you know all of this, then why tell me that things aren't gonna change? Why say everything is gonna be alright?" I sighed, unsure where else we should go, what we should do. "Don't try to cheer me up by lying to me," he demanded. I nodded some more and wrapped my arms around him once more. "And don't tell me not to worry about that now, because I don't think I can make it through now if even you won't—if even you're being…if you're…if you," he stammered, on the brink of tears it again. "Did you hear what I just said?"

"Let's give this a little bit longer and I'm sure I've offered you this before but I'll say it again, okay? If you get to a point where it feels like this isn't worth it anymore, you tell me. Tell me and I'll make the pain go away. Forever," I promised, pulling him closer and kissing his hair. "When we first met, I used to think I could make you happy, fix you. Took me a while to realize that while you are broken, you don't need to be fixed. I like you better this way, and I know how that sounds but you're an amazing person, who makes me laugh and never lets me get away with being boring or ordinary or stupid. Look, just don't do anything without me. If you can't do this anymore, I'll sign you out of this dump, take you home, make you comfy, and then," I whispered, but I had to stop myself and bite down on my lower lip to keep from sobbing hysterically.

"You'd do that for me even though it's obviously the last thing in the world you wanna do?" I nodded, no longer capable of actually talking without losing it, and making him think that I wouldn't keep my promise, if ever asked. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna do that to you," he promised snuggling in really close to me, while I thought about what he'd just said.

"So basically, you're only hanging on because you're afraid to hurt me?" I hated that idea even more than I hated his being here, even more than I hated the Universe for doing this to him, and even more than I hated myself for not being perfect, for not being able to give him exactly what he needed.

"Well, that's just a temporary situation. You're sort of in a tough place right now, but as soon as you get okay enough to be able to handle life without me, I'm gonna jump out a window or something," he teased, although it didn't sound that much like a joke.

"You don't have to do that; it's like I told you. When you need to go, regardless of my emotional state, I want you to tell me and I will take care of it. That way it'll be painless, and you won't hafta worry about messing it up, okay?" He still just shrugged, but I got the feeling that he was okay with accepting my help on this. "Now can we talk about something slightly less depressing," I taunted, still wondering how he managed to fall so far, so fast, without me seeing it. I had been sleeping with him at night, at least three times a week sometimes more. I'd been playing games with him, kissing him, cooking for him. We'd been watching TV, talking to each other, making love, playing video games and I thought—I just thought I would have seen something so huge coming. I sat his side, and held his hand, and promised that everything was going to be okay. We ate dinner together. "No wonder you're not eating," I mocked, gently, carefully as I picked at the crappy hospital meal while he finished the Ruben I'd brought him earlier. He laughed a little.

"How many times do I hafta tell you? I'm doing the best I can! I just don't eat that much. I eat whatever you make me but usually…when I go home at night usually just have a couple drinks, and maybe some popcorn or potato chips, or something and then I fall asleep on the couch in front of the TV. Next morning, I might have some cereal before I go to work and then I eat some of whatever you brought for lunch. It's been like that my whole life. Do you have any idea how long it would take for me to stretch out my stomach so I can eat like a "normal" person?" He watched my face to see if he had done that correctly, and if he hadn't what he should do instead. "Oh—you were kidding, 'cuz that stuff tastes like crap. Actually, I can't even say that because it's an insult to crap." I smiled, again grateful to be able to see the guy acting like himself. "Can you stay here tonight or do you hafta be at work really early?" I smiled, shook my head, and gave him another pat on the arm. "Stop doing that!"

"Sorry. It's just so hard to see you like that, pajamas in the middle of the day, all tired, and doped to the gills, little bit of drool coming out of your mouth and—in case you haven't noticed—you've only made fun of me, really made fun of me not just our usual guy stuff like twice today, which is a third of what you'd do on a regular day. It makes me worry about you, makes me think—I dunno. Nevermind. I'm getting used to a new situation. Remember right after your leg how scared I was of touching you because I was afraid I might hurt you?" Greg nodded, rolling his eyes, probably picturing the first time we made love after his surgery, the same way I was. "This is like that. Give me some time, I'll get used to it, and things are gonna be pretty much normal, okay?" He shrugged. "Well if you don't give me time then I might not be able to help you out at all. I mean, not—actually I will be able to help you but I am, I mean I can…" I stammered, mostly for his benefit. "I won't be able to process this, deal with it and I won't be able to treat you normally, and you're gonna freak out, which can kick your disease into overdrive, which can cause them to keep you in here longer, which will make me more uncomfortable, which will make me worry more, which—you understand, right Buddy?"

He smiled and nodded, and curled up really close to me. The old House would have made fun of me and said how could I not understand, I thought. It was getting pretty late. House had just taken his nighttime medications, and it was almost time for him to be told—officially—to go to bed. I was starting to think that his complaints about the schedule had more to do with his need to everything exactly as he wanted to, than with any actual circadian rhythm issues. Which is why I was smart enough to not bring it up. "Hey," I whispered as he started to drift off towards dreamland. "You want the lights on or off?"

"I dunno," he confessed, nervously, and tired. "As long as you leave the TV on, I'm okay. So, I guess whatever makes you more comfortable." I didn't tell him that I had no plans of sleeping that night. Greg lay in my arms as I switched the lights off, watched his terrified face in the pale glow from the TV, turned them back on, and the two of us lay there together, yawning, and occasionally mocking each other. He fell into a light, uneasy sleep sometime around 10:00, and I stayed up, thinking about my friend, our past our current situation, and tried to figure out what we were going to do next.