Disclaimer: I do not own House.

Winter

"I'll be counting out my demons,
Hoping everything's not lost."

- 'Everything's Not Lost', Coldplay

Winter arrives without any preamble or delay and out comes the thick coat. It is a heavy tan affair that smells vaguely of mothballs and something from a far-off distant memory that tugs at her subconscious. She isn't sure if she wants to remember, but she isn't sure if she wants to forget either. So she just wears it, and the scent of the past lingers on her. The winds are bitingly cold and the air is painfully fresh, and somehow she knows that if she closes her eyes long enough and let her mind wander, everything will come apart again. So because the coat is out and it hangs on the bedroom door silently, she cannot sleep. She cannot allow herself to drift further away, because she knows she's the only one who can stop her from floating out to sea. Where have the tether and the rope gone? It has snapped in the cold and the frost, and she can see the ends trailing limply in the water. But somehow, inexplicably, it gives her some satisfaction to know that when she has the strength and the will enough, she will be able to make her way over and clutch it.

But for now she is willing to linger in the faint scent of memories and the dull haze of insomnia. She is willing to clutch the coat to her at night and she is willing to soak its sleeve with salty tears. She doesn't look at herself in the mirror in the mornings, because she knows that despite the movies, books and poems, puffy red-eyed women aren't attractive.

And despite the cold weather, everything is still the same when she walks into the office in the morning. Nobody looks at her differently, or smiles sympathetically anymore than they used to. No one stops to enquire why it is that her eyes are heavier than usual, or even notices it at all. Or if they do, they don't comment. And it's strange, because she feels different. But what is different? She never feels the same, after all. And when she steps outside the building at looks at the gently snowing sky, she has to fight to resist the urge to spread her arms wide and spin. She has to resist the urge to bend down and scoop up handful of snow and throw it into the air and watch it fall down. She has to resist the urge to turn and speak to those who aren't there anymore. Yes, she has to resist.

Sometimes when she's in the shower or in her living room watching TV, she thinks she hears a phone ringing in the background, amidst all that noise. But when she turns the tap off, or flicks the volume down, it's gone. But it lingers in her mind, and she is scared. She is scared so often now, and heck it's cold and she's cold and she wants it to stop. She wants everything to stop … wants everything to slow down. Stop the world; she wants to get off!

Impossible, implausible, improbable.

And now she sits on the corner of her bed, and yes, the coat is in the corner as usual. Every so often, her eyes flick up to it as she scans through the pages of the journal, and she has to shake her head to get the water out of her brain, because she has to have something in her brain for her eyes to keep focusing on the one object. Or perhaps something on her mind, but of course she won't think about that, because that actually requires thought, and it's thought that she's not prepared to give. And when sleep comes – because it always does, no matter how long it takes – she drifts in and out of consciousness, and no, she does not toss and turn or clutch her pillow, because it doesn't happen like that in reality. Instead, she shifts in her bed and at four, gets up to get a drink and do some research because there's really no point in staying in bed if she's not getting any rest.

She can't focus on the computer screen, and acting on an impulse – which is a big thing for her, because she doesn't act on impulses, often, that is – she switches it off and grabs her car keys. She's out of the door before the door is open – almost. Not really.

Her mind is a Charybdis of half-thoughts and ideas, except it's not ships it swallows: it's her.

The ground is icy, and she half skids, half slides towards her car. Pausing to wipe the frost from the windscreen, she breathes in deeply, relishing the cold, fresh air. She brushes her hair back with a quick sweep of her hand and gets in the car and drives away before she can remember the piles of journal articles waiting for her back home.

She finds herself at an outdoor ice skating rink almost without knowing she got there, if the jangling of her car keys hadn't been an indication of her mode of transport. Taking a look around, she sees the place is deserted, save for one lone skater at the end of the rink, trying to execute a neat salchow, but landing clumsily. She could tell her that she is rushing it and that her arms are wildly flinging everywhere, but for now she'll just observe, because she doesn't think she trusts her voice enough to talk. And besides, it's been such a long time since she last got on ice, let alone in skates that …

She just observes.

The skater is frustrated now, and gives up, opting to do spins instead, which she is obviously much better at – which is funny, because she herself had always been better at jumps, because the feeling of flying, even for a minute, was always so alluring. Spins were more like losing control, and she never wanted to lose control. The skater at the other end of the rink does a cross spin. Three steps to cross spins, she remembers. Step one: leg out; step two: leg up; step three: leg down. Simple enough theory – harder in practice. She can recall the first time she tried – disastrous. The corners of her mouth twitch and turn up in a little smile that is five percent humour and fifty percent irony. The remaining percentage is lost somewhere in the midst of the snow and the ice.

She turns away. Behind her, the skater stumbles and falls.

She doesn't see it. Her entire life she's been turning away from the bad things just in time. There had only been one instance where she had looked back, and that had hurt her more than she could have imagined. And perhaps it was then she realised that she'd been living in a bubble. And that bubble had popped.

She doesn't look back anymore.