A/N: This idea came to me very suddenly, and I knew I had to run with it before it got away. It will be VERY dark. You have been warned.

Dissociative fugue is a very real, albeit rare psychological condition. Not much is known about its cause or what makes people "snap out of it," but it is almost always related to major stressors or some sort of post-traumatic stress.

1. Resurrected

Something is scratching its way out
Something you want to forget about.

"Little House" - The Fray

When he stepped into the hospital, he was met with strange looks. Nothing out of the ordinary: he was accustomed to this – was used to the stares, the glares, the confusion. His clothes were tattered. His limp was deterring and frightening. He hadn't cut his hair in months, hadn't shaved in longer. He took a deep breath – in, out, in, out. People have always stared, he told himself, evening his breathing. It's just a hospital.

He'd been a lumberjack for as long as he could remember, and had done work at Sourland Mountain countless times. The scent of pine had replaced body odor. It seemed as though he perspired sap. He could determine the time of the day better by the height of the sun than by the hands of an analog clock. The forest had become more of a home to him than his cabin was, but the eerie déjà vu he felt upon entering the teaching hospital was not to be ignored.

For the first time since his thigh, he'd slipped. The rain had been pelting down like a son of a bitch, coating everything with a slick layer of ice water that made almost any job involving sharp instruments a death wish. But this work was his life – this was what he did – and he wasn't to be intimidated by mother nature's misplaced tears.

The tall cedar hadn't given beneath the bite of the saw, and the tool had jumped from his hand, turning itself off as it did so, a safety feature that stopped him from amputating his own limb. The blade had still managed to nick the end of his boot, cutting the top of his foot open in a threatening gash. He'd tried to stunt the bleeding with an old rag, but he had given in when he saw the tip of a bone. Navicular, he thought mildly. My navicular bone.

He had no idea how he knew. But he never questioned it.

He also didn't question how he knew exactly where the hospital's clinic was, navigating with ease through sliding glass doors and gurneys and doctors and blood pressure cuffs. The receptionist gave him a long sideways look while handing him the clipboard. "I'm sorry," she began, and he had interacted with enough people to know that an apology was never a great way to start a sentence, "but… what's your name?"

The clipboard slipped in his clammy hands. "Jim," he said. His voice wavered as he began to tremble. "Jim Reilly. Why?"

Accusation tumbled from his lips before he could stop it. No, he wanted to say, I didn't mean to say it like that. He wasn't used to people. Wasn't used to society.

She spoke before he could. "You look just like someone I knew," she said off-handedly. "Sorry," she repeated, and shoved her face into her paperwork, dismissing him with her embarrassment.

The chairs were cold and the room was eerily silent. Sweat was settling on his forehead and his penmanship was ruined by his incessant shaking. Name. Date of birth. Why are you here? Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.

Silently, he prayed that he only needed a few stitches - he couldn't remember the last time he'd had health insurance, and wasn't sure he could afford something like surgery, or even an expensive antibiotic.

The pain had deteriorated to a dull throb, eclipsed by the pounding in his head. He'd been feeling strangely unlike himself for weeks, but had woken up feeling particularly off. The weather was miserable, the day was long, his life was hard – he figured that was as good a reason as any to feel "off" on any given day.

Before long, he was being led to an examination room by a friendly nurse. He watched as her red ponytail bobbed in front of him, studied the color of her scrubs. Why did it all seem so familiar? He was certain he'd never been to Princeton-Plainsboro. He avoided hospitals at all costs. Who on earth could she possibly resemble?

They entered the examination room and she motioned for him to take a seat. He obliged, dragging his useless leg behind him as he approached the chair. When he sat, he turned to the nurse and forced a smile.

She blanched, her jaw falling open as she made eye contact with him.

He felt the nervousness set in again; each muscle in his body tensed and cold perspiration dampened the back of his already rain-soaked shirt. "Everything okay?" he asked quietly.

"What… did you do to your leg?"

"Laceration on my dorsal right foot, maybe all the way through to the navicular bone," he recited, the medical jargon springing from his lips with blind expertise.

The nurse looked even more horrified at his perfect diagnosis. "No," she shook her head once, twice. A third time. "Your…" she pointed toward his right thigh, dangling like a limp pig in a butcher shop window.

"Oh. Severed the muscle," he explained quietly, drawing a line across where most of his rectus femoris had been, smack dab in the middle of his thigh. "I'm a lumberjack, so I deal with a lot of –"

"I'm sorry," the nurse said, backing toward the door. She looked horrified. What was with the apologies today? Had he done something wrong? "I'm just going to grab the doctor…"

The door slammed shut behind her.

He sat, worried, confused, alone. She hadn't even looked at his foot, hadn't even started to remove his sock or clean the wound. Hadn't even asked him his date of birth or full name, hadn't –

The door flew open, revealing a petite, blonde doctor in heels. Her fair features were tied up in rage, her knuckles white with fury as she clenched the clipboard in front of her.

"Is this supposed to be a joke?" she seethed, her voice a violent whisper. "I could have you arrested!"

He blinked. Anxiety crept into his chest and arteries, slugging his brain function and forcing even more sweat from his pores. "What?" His voice was quiet and scared. His hand absently clenched his thigh.

"'Jim Reilly,'" she read mockingly from his form, "'lumberjack. Fifty-two years of age. Previous medical history includes a partially removed rectus femoris due to an accident with a saw.'" She threw the clipboard onto the counter and shoved her hands onto her slim hips. "Jim? Honestly?"

It had been ages since he had seen someone so angry, and he had absolutely no clue how to deal with it. "I don't know what you –"

"This isn't a game, House!" she bellowed, stepping toward him and poking an accusatory finger in his face. "You can't fake your own death to avoid jail time, and then grow a beard to change identities!"

House? The tremors were nearly untamable now, rendering him incapable of speaking. He put a hand to his forehead and wiped the sweat away. "I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head side to side. "I don't know who you're talking about." Breathing became more difficult – the air seemed to be thinner in this room with this angry woman. He gripped the edge of the seat and leant forward, willing the oxygen to reach his lungs. He was gasping, clawing at his own neck.

His eyes rose to meet the doctor's, who was now mirroring his confusion on her own face. "You really have no idea what's going on," she realized.

In a flurry of movement, she was at his side, running a hand up and down his back. "Shhh," she said, trying to relax him enough to return his breathing to normal. "I'm sorry – just breathe. I can explain everything. I didn't realize… I don't understand…" she tried to string words together but was unable to figure out what it was that she was trying to say.

How could this man in front of her be Gregory House?

"Listen," she said after his breaths had become more regular. How could she be sure this was him? It was the eyes, she knew. The eyes gave him away. "Your name is Gregory House. We all thought you died two years ago. I worked for you. My name is Allison Cameron."

He was shaking his head, running fingers through his hair agitatedly. His head was throbbing as if it had a heartbeat of its own, his breaths again coming laboriously. "Why are you saying this? I just told you my name."

He blinked and the door was open, and two more doctors were entering the room. The walls seemed to close in on him as he processed their faces. The first to enter was a fit black man in a suit, the second was tall, blonde, and clad in jeans and a button-up. The black man stared at him, eyes probing like daggers into his soul.

Dr. Cameron was speaking, explaining something to these men, trying to make sense of something that was nonsensical. And the three of them standing there, like a beautiful trifecta, set off a light bulb somewhere in the depths of his mind that spread across each synapse like wildfire. He looked at his hands, at his foot, at his clothing. Looked at the equally stunned people in front of him.

Jim Reilly. Who was Jim Reilly? He was, wasn't he? Hadn't he sawed down trees for decades, lived in a tiny log cabin in the woods, worked under the table for more money than he'd ever needed? Wasn't he…

Then the memories were tumbling in relentlessly, and he let out a sharp cry and pressed his forehead into his hands. What the hell? The fire. His unlikely escape. The dental records. His friend's death, the incessant sobbing, the loss of direction. And then… what?

He had appeared at a log cabin.

He had become Jim Reilly.

"Jesus Christ," Gregory House said, a look of terrified agony flicking to his face. "I remember."