AN: Well, well, well, look who is still alive? I just re-watched seasons 1-3 of House, and suddenly remembered this story I'd written, so many years ago. I remembered that many of you had asked for a sequel, and was persuaded to delve back into writing a short one-shot version. I still get people adding the original story to their favorites list, so I hope that this will be appreciated, and that it does my original story justice? Don't hesitate to tell me what you think.


They say that time heals all wounds, and that I've found to be so very, very true ... to a point.

It's been four years since the fateful day that my husband, Dr. Gregory House, and I fell from the sky and into a whirlwind life that led us to where we currently are. It's been four years since he and I laid broken and bloodied, on a deserted tropical shore, hundreds of miles off the coast of Australia. It's been four years since the two of us nearly lost our lives, and our sanity, trying to crawl back from imminent death. It's those physical wounds that have healed. The faint scars have all but disappeared from us both.

It's the emotional wounds that will never leave us.

There are still nights that I wake up startled, sweaty, and wondering why I just heard the rustling of palm trees. There are nights that House paces the floor, insomnia washing over him in droves. There isn't a day when a plane passes overhead, and we both don't look up - making sure it's kept its place in the sky. One doesn't forget the visions of people flying out of the broken fuselage of your aircraft, sucked into the sky blue void beyond. It's the screams that will forever haunt you both.

Four years.

A lot changes in four years.

House and I purchased the island we were stranded on, with help from the Australia government. We built an island home there, and just over a year from the date of our accident, we married on the white sand beach of our near demise. It was in the very spot where we almost died, on our wedding night, that I chose to tell him the news I'd been carrying for the past fourteen days.

Nine months and eight days after we married, Amarra Kye House made her entrance into the world.

Definition: Everlasting Ocean

When I came across these names in the baby book I'd been reading, I knew there was no other name that would work so well.

Four years later.

I smile from my place on the beach of our island, as our two year daughter squeals loudly. Her auburn curls dance in the summer breeze as House holds her in his arms, "saving her" from the turquoise waves. The sun reflects off the water, making her bright blue eyes - twins to the blue of her father's - sparkle brilliantly. "AGAIN DADDY!" she screams, giggling madly.

A long time ago, when you first started working for House, he had said in passing that he never wanted children. He said he couldn't bring a life into this world, deathly afraid he'd make the mistakes of his own father, and it would destroy the life of his own. He was terrified the first time he held his little girl, but when she opened her blue eyes and looked up at him, you knew it was going to be alright.

Your daughter worships the ground he walks on, even at two.

It's your daughter that has sealed the changed man he was on the road to becoming. He's still sarcastic and rude, however he's frequently kind. Gone is the gruff, cantankerous man the nurses had dubbed "McMeanie." In that place he's brought forth the Dr. Gregory House he once was, so many years ago. The House that looks at you with hope and love in his eyes, instead of pain.

The three of you got your happily ever after.

You know though, that one day you'll have to explain it to your daughter. She's too young to ask why you journey to this island once a year, or why your heart races every time you set foot on an aircraft. She's blissfully unaware. But when that day comes, the day when your child finally asks you all about why you decided to get married?

I'll look at her with joy in my eyes, and tell her.

Every detail, from the moment House told you he hired you as a piece of lobby art - to the moment you opened your eyes after laying unconscious and dead to the world. To the moment House proposed to you, and the look on his face as you said, "I do." ... and the moment you realized that you loved him more than you could possibly say - the moment a haunted song floated from your lips, as you cradled his weary, battered body under a star-filled sky, the crashing of the waves accompanying your sorrow.

I'll tell her that it was an everlasting ocean that brought us together.

It would be an everlasting ocean, that continued on even after the two of us were gone.