A/N: Although I was upset about the whole hallucination thing with the Huddy, I couldn't get over how amazing the House, M.D. writers are. They're moving every along perfectly.
I really wanted to run with this whole madness thing and was split between two choices. I've decided on this one so I hope you all like it.
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Title: The Road Not Taken
Summary: House's madness takes him to the life he always wanted.
Rating: Probably K+ now, T to be safe, and maybe even M later
Disclaimer: House M.D. belongs to FOX and David Shore, I own absolutely nothing.
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It was like being in a prison.
The only difference was instead of bars, there were doors to keep the occupants from harming one another.
House was sitting in the corner of his room at Mayfield psychiatric hospital seemingly void of all signs of life. His eyes were dull yet intense as they stared holes into the opposite wall without displaying any need to even blink.
He was truly scared for the first time in his life, and also for the first time, had admitted it. Admitted to the fright, the feeling, the shame, the need for help; it wasn't because he was hallucinating—he had seen many strange things throughout his life and hallucinations weren't foreign to that list. It was his inability to distinguish between that and reality.
"I can not believe you right now."
Amber sat on a padded bench shoulder to shoulder with House, her knees pulled up so that her chin could rest atop them.
House ignored her, remaining silent.
"We don't have to talk aloud to communicate," enlightened Amber, turning on her cheek to address House. "As a matter of fact..." Amber disappeared. "We don't even need to look at one another. How convenient is that?" She reappeared.
House's expression hadn't changed, but his emotions couldn't be hidden to Amber.
"You're frightened because when a situation isn't real, neither are you. Like me, you yourself become a figment of your own imagination."
House blinked.
"Oh come on," she prompted, "you know this is intriguing. Don't leave me hanging."
Amber took a step away from House. In a more masculine voice, and having to shorten her neck to make the vocal stretch possible, Amber spoke again.
"Having an imagination is a sign of life; the objects of said imaginer's mind are not real, even if they imagine themselves they still exist."
Then in her normal voice, "but when you are unaware of the status of your mind—whether you're making things up or not, you end up treating an unreal situation as you would in real life, therefore wasting your real life on your unreal life, ergo your real life becomes nothing but an extended hallucination until...well you see where this is going."
He knew. Because she knew. His life would eventually become meaningless. His relationships would become nonexistent no matter how real they seemed to progress. He might as well be considered dead.
"Why are you here!?" House broke away from his trance to connect eyes with Amber.
"Forgive me for answering a question with a question, but why are we here?" She raised her arms in the air before dropping them to her sides with a thump. "We should be solving cases, but instead we're about to go to therapy with a friendly group of crazies."
House stood, almost stumbling with the sudden movement, and approached Amber dangerously. His eyes were bloodshot, and his uneven steps forced the beginning of a river of sweat beads down through the valley between his hollowing eyes.
"You want to hurt me don't you?" she determined knowingly, standing her ground like a Miss America contestant readying for an interview. "You shouldn't be so hostile, how do you even know this is real? Maybe Cuddy looked into your lost little puppy dog eyes and fell into bed with you for the real thing this time. And instead of enjoying it, you're hallucinating what it would be like in here."
House stepped back, his breathing quicker and shallower and sat down again, placing his face into his palms.
"How pathetic!" exclaimed Amber.
"Ooh, I know," she began excitedly, "why don't you try to control it!"
She sat next to House, eyes wide with enthusiasm. "You wanted Cuddy, you hallucinated her, and you got her. It was amazing wasn't it? Anything and everything you want is at your grasp. Who cares if it's not real? Reality is her firing you. We see how that turned out."
She fervently whispered her final statement. "We can have anything and everything we want with no repercussions."
There was no arguing with himself. There was no point telling her a perfectly false life wasn't what he wanted because she seemed to desire it so much herself.
House would have reached for his ipod to block out her voice, but they had confiscated it upon his entrance. Instead he only exhaled and squeezed his eyes shut, seeing nothing but black and relishing in it. With eyes open he was forced to sort through lies upon lies; only eyes closed could he relax. Until he started to dream.
With that thought, a Mayfield employee appeared in House's room after a short introductory knock, holding a small plastic cup containing two tablets of Ibuprofen. "Time for lights out," he announced as he handed House the pills.
House downed them scornfully and dropped the crumpled cup at his feet, smirking as the man had to kneel down to retrieve it.
"They downgraded you," Amber stated spitefully, referring to the lack of Vicodin. "How do they expect you to recover when you're in constant pain?"
The employee left the room. An almost inaudible click signaled that the door had been locked and House moved to the opposite end of the room to lie on his twin sized bed. He immediately threw all covers from his body onto the floor into a tangled mess of unimportant thread count. He was already sweating and needed to get a good night's sleep.
He could feel Amber's presence near him, but his eyes remained closed. He continued to ignore the feeling of her hand brushing back and forth along his temple's hairline, and became deaf to her words as his thoughts drifted elsewhere. "Sweet dreams," she whispered.
Tomorrow was visitation day.
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A/N: I'm gonna stick with short chapters so I can update more frequently. Please review, and I'll get into the actual plot later. The summary just doesn't do what I'm planning justice.