Claimer: I own only my cat. That is all I own in the world.

It was Wilson's emergence into his office that did it. He hadn't thought about it really, only there to collect a file, the room just a room without House in it. But it's there the black flames up the wall, shadows of a fire the blasted the life from the room. The file is on his desk, blue, closed, a dark rectangle but for the shimmering of moonlight that creeps through the room in stripes cast over it, like the bars of a prison. The sigh pours out over his brain but he lets not a whisper loose, the best hope this patient has is for that file to be open, pulled apart, to have House obsessed, spectacle lenses plates of yellow reflection, the blue creeping out over the top given fire from the lamp light. It's not like he believes that irises colour can change, that passion makes them warmer, he never believed in personification like his English tutor used to murmur about wistfully. It wasn't reality, but in those moments it was nice to think that something within his friend was alight.

The chair is spun in the direction of the socket and he gathers that no-ones been in here since he was moved. Why would they, honestly. He lowers himself down, the leather lefts out a huff of air as he rests his weight in it. People walk past and he sees a white glare from the corner of the room, the flying V. The flying V that he pulled the heart out of, and he stares at the ghosts of House's experiment and thinks. He remembers that same English teacher, who'd talked to him about MacBeth, about ambition and guilt

"You cut up a thing that's alive and beautiful to find out how it's alive and why it's beautiful, and before you know it, it's neither of those things, and you're standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it." He'd stared at her for a while, she stared out the window at the changing leaves, "What…what was that?"

"Clive Barker."

He had tried to see how it related but staring at her curling blond hair he'd shaken it off as part of her literary lunacy. But he thinks he understands now.

He wonders what House has seen.Wilson wonders if he'll have enough strength to turn away from the spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, ask not that they unsex him there in the name of his desire to see done what he believes is right for House. He swears he hears the metronome of House's heartbeat as he whispers to the dark, words engraved in the back of his mind

"Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing"

He stares at his hands and in the stripes of the moonlight, he sees blisters and burns.