Notes: Originally posted on LJ on 11-09-09.

I started writing this a few days after the season 5 finale and put a lot of effort in it then, but the more we got to know about season 6, the more rare and sporadic my will to work on it grew. I tend to lose interest in finishing fics when canon renders them completely incorrect and AU. I found this tonight in my folder of unfinished fics and while I actually intended to work on something else, I opened it, read it over quickly and felt suddenly inspired to finish it. Call it serendipity. So while reading this, keep in mind that absolutely nothing from season 6 has happened. I've mapped out House's time in the asylum entirely in my own fashion. Let me know what you think!

Fields in May

There is a fog, ghostly unlike any other, that adorns the trees in the far off distance during the early morning hours before the sun comes up to evaporate the dewy remains of the night from the grass. As of late, I find myself rising early to witness the awakening of day and celebrate the passing of yet another night of uninterrupted sleep. It's beautiful.

With everyone else in Mayfield still asleep—with the exception of the hospital's security perhaps, but it's a large building and they are way off on the other end—there is room for contemplating.

The reason I'm here is because I am apparently displeased with reality. When I told one of the other patients this, his response was, and I quote, "Who isn't?" End quote. I find this both comforting and annoying. Comforting because it makes me feel less alone; annoying because, typically, I enjoy being alone.

The moment you realize you are unable to tell reality from imagery, it's hard to trust your peers. I ask myself, is there a way to condition your mind so that you can intentionally defy the rules of reality? And if there is, what am I to do with such power?

Welcome to my thoughts.

ooo

It is almost midnight and you are entering my room. This is odd because the door is usually locked, but I guess I am too occupied by you stepping out of your heels and neatly setting them aside to really care. I lift my head from the depression it has dented into my pillow to watch you slip off your suit jacket and unzip your pants before pushing them down your legs. Is this waking up in another level of a dream? Did I make this? Did I fabricate this moment with my mind?

You advance a few steps across the floor, pausing at the single window in the room to take in the view. You press a hand against the glass, fingers sprawled, as you lean in to look down at the grass field metres below. You lean in so far your hair falls around your face like a curtain, blocking your expression from my view. When you look my way, you're sporting a timid smile and I wonder if it's one born out of admiration or contempt upon seeing Mayfield's gardens.

You leave me no choice but to scoot over and make room for you as you lift the sheets and get into my bed in just your underwear and that shirt. That pale blue shirt. Either this is indeed just another product of my mind, or you have a very sick sense of humour.

The low thread count sheets ruffle as you settle yourself comfortably alongside my body. It's a single bed so I've only so much space to offer. Your legs are smooth and your skin is cold. I am lying on my side and you're on your back, facing in direction of the ceiling. There's a slight strip of light coming from the narrow crack under the door and it hits your face right across the eyes, rendering their colour a grey nearly as pale as the sclera. It is an eerie and strangely beautiful sight. Whatever it is you see in my face from the corner of your eye makes your lips twitch almost complacently. "You want to kiss me, don't you?"

"I always want to kiss you," I answer as by automatism, expecting disaster at every turn. If I wasn't sure you're not really here before, I am now.

You fist the blanket, study the fabric, trace your fingertips along the hem and at last pulls it over your chest. "Am I real?" Your voice is barely above a whisper, but your lips form the question with perfect intelligibility.

"I don't know." The lie develops itself on my vocal chords and slips off my tongue with a weak kind of ease.

You turn your head to look me in the eye. "Would it make a difference?"

It would but I shake my head despite it all. Your stare is relentless as your lips part for a breath.

"Kiss me then."

I wake up hours later and you're gone, your handprint on the glass window faded away in your wake.

ooo

Perception isn't reality.

When I wake up in the middle of the night a week or so later it's because you're touching my face. You start when I open my eyes, yanking your hand back as though burned. Seated on the edge of the mattress, your fingers curl around the edge of my bed as you look away, gaze settling on the void that is the far wall. I run my hand up your naked spine, silently mouthing the names of the vertebrae to train my mind, until I reach the clasp of your bra.

On this particularly warm night, the crickets chirping outside are audible even inside the building, resounding a rhythmic symphony that makes one's head spin. I undo the clasp on your bra with an expertise I didn't know I possessed and you drop your head back in anticipation, exposing the slender column of your throat as raven curls roll slowly off your shoulders and down your tanned back.

"Come here," I order, but you remain still, back ramrod straight. "I want to make love to you until all the stars have become supernovas," I try.

At this you scoff through your nose, shoulders jerking. You crane your neck to look over your shoulder and meet my eyes, smiling and frowning at the same time in a look that says, "Oh come on, seriously?" And I grin back at you.

I'm not a poet, but you make me want to try.

ooo

For weeks your presence flickers like a candle in the wind. One moment you're there, and the next you're gone.

We talk over the phone once and this time it's really you. I know this because someone from the hospital staff actually comes into my room one morning to tell me you've called to Mayfield requesting I call you back. So unless my entire days are filling up with hallucinations now, this must be real.

You ask how I'm doing and I say I'm peachy. You ask if I want you or Wilson to visit sometime and I say there's no need. You ask my medical opinion on a case and I say it's unethical, if not illegal to use my advice seeing as I have no medical license anymore. You don't press for an answer, clearly eager to end the awkward conversation soon yourself. We hang up with uneasy goodbyes and no resolve whatsoever.

That night, you look like I imagine you looked like when I talked to you on the phone today, hair pulled back in a lame attempt at a pony tail, curls escaping the elastic band with every movement of your neck. Your hair is too short for this. It sticks to your face as you are perched on top of me, hands on my chest for support, and you toss your head back as you breathe your pleasure in and out.

We lie still for a while afterwards, heartbeats overlapping and bodies slack and sticky with perspiration from the physical exertion. I'm dozing off as you move around the room to gather up your clothing, leaving sweaty footprints on the linoleum floor to evaporate in the sultry warm air.

Part of me can still see it becoming reality.

ooo

"Cuddy?"

"Yeah?"

"When are you going to get rid of that evil little spawn of a child?"

A brief burst of laughter; there's no doubt in your mind that I'm referring to Rachel. "That'll be the day," you say and I shrug, as much as that is possible lying down. It was worth the try.

"And it's Lisa." Lifting yourself from my chest, you smirk. It's funny how when you want it, your entire face smirks—from the risorius muscles pulling at the corners of your mouth to that trace of bravado in your eyes that seems integral to your personality as I've always remembered it. You look the youngest I've seen you in ages. Leaning down, you murmur against my unshaven chin, "'Cuddy' is for working hours."

"Lisa," I repeat slowly to retry the taste of the name on my tongue after all this time. "Lisa." I probably haven't addressed you with your first name in twenty years.

Hovering over me on all fours, you pause to look at me, marginal surprise registering in eyes that are partially hidden by your hair falling in front of your face. "You're lisping," you say and it sounds almost accusatory.

I blink. "No I'm not."

"Yes you are," you chuckle and you sling aside the covers like a period to your sentence.

"No," I argue again, and to prove my point I add, "Lisa." But you're not listening anymore. You're slithering down my body, brushing your lips over my skin but not kissing. My limbs grow heavy when you reach my crotch, and I have to remind myself to breathe.

"Lisa," I whisper once more and I keep repeating it in time with your ministrations. The name means 'consecrated to God'. I looked that up a few days after we met. I want to tell you but I refrain, because my mouth is too dry and my head is spinning. And besides, it doesn't even apply to this moment because what you are doing to me right now has to be sinful.

ooo

"Lisa."

"Hmm?"

"Nothing."

ooo

I wake up in pain.

Blindly reaching for a bottle of pills on the nightstand, it's not until I feel nothing but cold surface under the palm of my outstretched hand that I remember that this isn't my own bedroom and I'm not allowed any painkillers anymore.

You stir against my shoulder as I try to sit up, bringing your upper half up with me in the process. "Is something wrong?" you mumble, sleep rendering your speech almost unintelligible, but you know even before you've fully opened your eyes that there is.

My nights before the hallucinations started were longer than my days because at night I was alone.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, leg stretched out, toes pointing in direction of the ceiling, I feel my jaw periodically clench in pain as you rub your hand over the throbbing source of said pain in my thigh. I've got my eyes closed but I imagine you're looking at me with intense concern from where you're kneeling on the floor next to the bed. Tears of compassion might even be bordering your lower eyelids. It doesn't take much to pull at your heartstrings.

You massage the spot until it feels numb and distant and I know then that, although we'd never be good together, we'd manage. You're not somebody who wants to be with me because I'm damaged and you wouldn't run away because of it either.

Drawing yourself up to your full height, you catch yourself on my shoulder, legs probably painfully stiff and knees wobbly and reddened from the uncomfortable position on the hard floor. I shrug your hand off and lie myself down, stretching out over the full surface of the mattress.

You clear your throat as though to remind me of your presence and I turn my head to innocently meet your leering gaze. "You're welcome," you say with half-hearted indignation, but I can't really take you very seriously when you're naked.

"Oh please," I grumble, scooting aside a few inches to make room, "you only helped me so you can get laid later."

"Guilty," you answer matter-of-factly, but not without a hint of dry amusement. I can tell you're trying not to break into a smile as you shoulder your way back into my bed. You prop the pillows up against the steel bars that function as the bed's headboard and you lean back against them.

I roll over so I'm between your legs and I can rest my head against your chest. "Cold-hearted bitch."

You run a hand through over the close-cropped hair on my scalp. "You love me though."

Silence manifests my affirmation. I love you more than I love myself.

ooo

When you're stuck in an asylum suddenly everybody wants something from you. The psychiatrists want me to talk about my feelings, the nurses want me to stop asking for more drugs, the administrator wants me to shut up in general, the guy in the next room wants to trade my pills for cigarettes, and you…

I don't know what you want.

ooo

I'm not delusional.

I know the key to being a good liar, to lying to the people around me, to lying to myself. Although I appear to excel at that last part, I'm not lying to myself right now. People make a conscious decision to lie, or tell their version of truth—whatever wording one prefers. I can't help the fact that you are threaded through my nightly existence. Just like I can't help the fact that it's easier to interact than to ignore.

I don't know if maintaining a love affair with a hallucination interferes with my recovery per se, but it can't possibly be helpful. Your visits become less frequent though, so I must be doing something right. I'm not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed upon realizing this fact.

ooo

Here's what happens on the last night.

The room is dark, the moon hidden behind a thick banner of clouds, looming in, gathering for a downpour, the result of two days worth of oppressive humidity.

I'm counting your breaths. You brush something off your skirt. You're half-sitting, half-leaning on the window sill. Your attire has cooled ten degrees since you were last here. Instead of naked, soft and clingy, you're fully dressed in one of your many custom work outfits and there's a great deal of air separating our bodies. You lift your head and I have to squint to make out the telltale lines in your features. Chewing the inside of your cheek, you look down on me with a fearful, distant expression. "I'm not coming back."

I try to gauge the exact meaning behind those words but I can't read you. What is it that you're implying? Is this my subconscious telling me the hallucinations are over? Are you displeased? Should I?

The mattress dips where you sit down next to my hip. Your hand is cold against my hot face and your eyebrows draw together at the contrast in body temperatures. "You're feverish. Have you been taking your meds?"

"Yes," I say and it earns me a crooked smile. I can't lie to you, to myself, like this. You lean over to touch your lips to mine and untimely push my hand away from between your thighs. You hold my upper lip between your teeth for a second, pull back, exhaling heavily.

I like you here. I like being able to touch your skin. I like the pale cerulean of your irises. I like it when you smile, and I like the little downwards parenthesis at the corner of your mouth when you don't smile. I like your sharp jaw line. I like your analytical view on me. I like your breasts. I like the way the tip of your defined nose feels against my cheek when we kiss.

"We are going to be fine."

I like your voice low and soft and soothing when you leave me in acquiescence. As the last shaft of light in the room loses its grip on your face, so does my touch, and all I that feel then is air and memories.

ooo

Re-birth isn't nearly as magical as is it sounds. There are no happy people offering a warm embrace and giving me presents. No Welcome Back banners in the hospital lobby or even my office. Not that I expected or wished any of that anyway.

On the second day of the rest of my life, Dean of Medicine and chief hospital administrator Dr. Lisa Cuddy comes to my office and presents me with a case I can't formally solve until I have retrieved my license. We're both aware of the hovering fact that things with us have never been about formalities anyway.

When she spins to leave, I say, "Lisa," and am about to thank her but something in her face when she turns back to me stops me short. Her brow is furrowed and her eyes wide, lips parted in question and I mentally whack myself over the head.

She's not you.

To ward off the confusion, I shrug childishly, apologize profusely and have already made up a mock story about how long I've been away and how hard it is to remember people's last names. Her facial expression is now bordering on a smile and she tells me to have fun with my case. She emphasizes my first name, marking the ending to my personal habit right here. She still doesn't get it, but I imagine she does.

She's not you, but I imagine someday she could be.