A/N This is my first published fan fiction, so I hope you like it. Please be kind, but I love constructive criticism. This was written based on the promos for 5x22. Not really AU, just an alternate scene.
I don't own, though I love to play. J
House lay on his rumpled bed clothes. His bad leg was stretched out straight, his other knee pointing at the ceiling. The same ceiling he was currently staring at, vainly trying to find something interesting; something to keep his attention long enough to forget about the person invading his room and subconscious.
"You really think that will work?" Amber said, the same Amber who died from a bus crash a year ago. That's what he has to remember. Amber is dead, she is not sitting in his room. He ignored her voice and again tried to focus on the ceiling.
"I really am here, denying it to yourself is not going to make me go away."
"I don't care." He finally grumbled.
"You're not the least bit curious about why I'm here?" He rolled his head to face her.
"I'm curious why no French maid's outfit." He could not be talking playful banter with his best friend's dead girlfriend, dead being the operative word.
"I'm a hallucination, not a fantasy." She said. She sat there is his arm chair, her long legs crossed, looking pissy, like she always did. Before, you know, she died.
The real question, the one that House was currently racking his brains about was why was he hallucinating. He hadn't taken any hallucinogenic drugs.
"That you remember."
The amount of Vicodin he had taken wasn't enough to cause hallucinations.
"'Long-term use' ring any bells?"
He briefly thought of the bus crash.
"Oh yes, and don't forget the DBS." He grimaced. She was purring by now. "If there's damage from the bus crash or the deep-brain stimulation that took this long to present," She clucked her tongue. "Whatever's wrong must be pretty bad, probably long term. You wouldn't recover. "
He wanted to put his hands over his ears. Shut up! He thought hard at her.
"I'm in your head, remember?" She looked at him primly. He moved on to other theories.
A brain tumor in his temporal or occipital lobe could cause visual hallucinations.
"That would be ironic, considering your stunt a couple years ago" She said, "Mini-strokes could also cause it, though then we would have to consider what could be causing the strokes."
He lay on the bed, trying to ignore her. Trying to not let her see how unnerved he was at how she answered out loud his unspoken thoughts. Amber leaned in over him.
"Or, you could just be losing it. Our brilliance has always bordered on madness anyway. What's to stop it from going just a little too far." Her voice took on a hypnotic quality. "One quick hop over the thin line between genius and insanity."
"No!" He snapped. He was fed up with this. "Four days without REM sleep can cause hallucinations. YOU are just a product of my exhausted brain." She just raised her eyebrow at him.
"That still doesn't explain why you're hallucinating Wilson's dead girlfriend."
"It's probably just my secret and very unconscious desire to get Wilson in my bedroom." He deadpanned.
He groaned and rolled over, facing away from the not-really-there-because-she's-dead-Amber. He needed to talk to Wilson. He would have to admit that he was seeing things…people, well just one person. Although who knows? Kutner could show up anytime; they could have a regular party.
There was another option, he suppose, theoretically. Amber could actually be here, from wherever beyond. To believe that option would be to throw away every conviction he had maintained his entire life. God does exist, there is an afterlife and people could be sent back.
"You'd rather have a tumor." House threw a pillow through her midsection.
A/N Thanks for reading! Leave a review?