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House sat in the glass room with Foreman, his new ducklings, Wilson, and Cuddy all standing by. "Racing Heartbeat" was written in black up on the white board under symptoms. It felt like the clock was ticking against them, and Amber being unconcious, drugged-up and under V-tach complicated things. Since they'd V-tached her, most of her symptoms would be nearly impossible to detect. God, did House wish he could remember more of the time he'd lost.

"What ever this is," Foreman began; "it wasn't caused by the crash."

"It could be Hyperthyroidism." Thirteen stated, though she seemed a bit distracted.

"Why would she just be having symptoms now?" asked Wilson, seeming genuinely curious.

"Maybe she's not." stated House, twirling his cane around between his hands. "Maybe it's just the first time some one's ever noticed."

"She's a doctor." stated Wilson, matter-of-factly. "If she were experiencing symptoms, she'd know to tell some one!"

"How do you know she didn't?" asked House, quirking an eye brow. "We can't rule any thing out."

"Graves Disease is a common form of Hyperthyroidism." suggested Cuddy.

Every one was silent for a second. The type of silence that confirmed that what had been said was worthy of the thought-process of Dr. House. "Test for Graves Disease." he said finally, standing. "If that's all it is, we'll do a partial thyroidectomy."

They all shuffled, pulling their files in together as they stood. This time, it was done quietly. In fact, there seemed to be a tensity in the room. House wasn't shooting out his usual sexual remarks. No one argued when Hyperthyroidism was mentioned. House didn't shoot it down for being "uninteresting".

"House," said Cuddy, looking at him seriously; "you need to rest. Over-working yourself is only going to cause more problems! A dead man can't do any good here."

"I'm not dead."

"Yet! But if you keep over-working yourself, you could be. Go home. Get some rest. I'll even take you if you don't have a ride!" she eyed him sadly, her eyes almost begging him to cooperate. "Please, House. "

"Is this the part where I pretend to care?" he asked, walking right by her. She turned and faced him as he got into the door way and began to walk out.

"I- I'm taking you off the case!" she said, in a way that was more threatening than fact.

"Do you know any one else who can solve this case?"

"We solved it! Hy-"

"And if it's not?"

Cuddy was absolutely silent. House's face was stone hard.

"Didn't think so." and at that, he turned and walked away- down the hall and into his office.

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A few patient files from the previous day were piled up on his desk. He remembered tossing them there before he got on his motorcycle, but from there to the bus crash his memory was missing. Maybe there would be some clue as to where exactly he went after work. He filtered through the files, but there was nothing. Absolutely no clue. He turned back towards his desk, leaned his elbows against it and placed his temples in between his hands. He'd never felt so much stress over saving a patient before in his life. Unable to sit still, he grabbed the fuzzy red-and-gray ball off the corner of his desk and began tossing it up and down. Maybe if he could figure out what bus he was on, he could figure out where he'd been. Find out the route of the bus and go from there. He stopped tossing the ball up and down and turned to place it back on the desk. As he did so, the corner of his eye caught on to some red fabric- about three feet away from his desk.

"How are you?"

"Well," he said, sitting up and getting a full-view of the person; "you just proved to me that my brain is not in the best of conditions."

"How so?" she asked, a teasing smile at her lips.

"I'm having a hallucination. Well-functioning people don't get those very often- then again, you should know that, shouldn't you Amber?"

She made a very soft, haughty laughing sound and leaned in to the desk. "So, how did this all happen?"

Hmm. That was the very same question he was asking himself. Which meant that this could be more than a hallucination. Perhaps a memory, or information from his subconcious. "I should be asking you that."

The hallucinated Amber smirked at him lightly, and suddenly placed a large bottle of a deep-red liquid on the desk. "What bar did you go to?"

"If I knew that, I would've gotten the keys back for my motorcycle already." he replied.

"Wanna drink?" she asked, passing him a large, crystal glass of the deep red liquid.

"Sure. Don't think I can get drunk off a hallucination." she poured herself a drink and they clicked their glasses together as House muttered a light "cheers". He then took a careful drink of it. "Hng. Sherry." When he looked back up, the hallucination was gone. But there was another question on his mind. He unclenched the hand that a few moments ago thought it was holding a beverage, grabbed his cane and took off out of the office.

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"Wilson," he began, simply walking into his friend's office; "does Amber drink Sherry?"

"No." he replied, eyeing House skeptically. "Actually, she hates it. I had her try it once with me and she spit it right out."

"Hnn..." he mused, beginning to pace. "Then Sherry's has to mean some thing..."

"What are you talking about? Did you have a flashback?"

"..well...sort of..." he sighed, positively frustrated. "Do you know any one named Sherry?"

"Amber...has a friend named Sherry." Wilson mused. "Sherry... I think... Ivanov."

"That works." he said, pausing to take a handful of vicodin. "Could you give me a ride to her house?"

"What?!" responded a very shocked Wilson. "I don't really even know this woman, we haven't called or talked to her or any thing and you just want me to pick up and take you to her house?!"
"This is important!" House replied, giving Wilson a stone-cold glance that just said 'I mean it'. "If she was there, I may be able to figure out or at least find out what exactly happened- or at least where I was!"

"But why would the two of you be at her house?"

"Maybe the two of us wouldn't. But she could have gone there before she came to pick me up."

Wilson took in a deep breath through his nose- the kind that meant he was contemplating some thing. It did make sense- to some degree. House didn't remember where he'd been, so it probably wasn't a bar he went to regularly. Amber may have gone to see Sherry to ask her for directions. He could have known about that much if Amber brought it up to him. "Okay, House." he answered, defeated. "I think I remember her address." he shuffled the car keys around in his pocket and stood.

House followed Wilson down the elevator and into the parking lot. He didn't really feel much like driving, since the Vicodin hadn't kicked in to take away the pain in his leg, so Greg just got and sat down in the passenger's seat. Thankfully, the car started up smoothly and Wilson drove them out on to the rode.

"So," began the oncologist, now noting that he had an opportunity to find out; "what exactly happened?"

"If I knew--"

"Not that." he replied, the car stopping at an intersection. "I mean, what did you remember?"

"It wasn't exactly a memory." House stated casually, leaning his head up against the window. "It was more like a..."

"Hallucination?" questioned his friend as they turned back out on to the street. He then sighed, extremely frustrated. "I can't believe I'm taking you to some woman's house that I barely even know over a hallucination."

"If you barely know her," began House, taking some of the mints that Wilson had stashed in his car; "then why do you know where she lives?"

"Just because I don't know her all that well doesn't mean I've never seen her. Amber took me to her house a few times for barbeques they had over holidays."

"Huhn." House replied, sucking on the tip of the mint and then beginning to chew on it.

"This is the place." the driver said abruptly, turning into a drive way that had a blue Honda Civic parked in the front. "I'll go with you. Don't wanna scare her."

"It means so much to me." his friend retorted, placing a hand dramatically over his heart and looking at him like a puppy. Both then got out and shut their doors at once.

Wilson walked up to the door and politely rung the door bell- where as House may have just walked right in- and in a couple of moments a fairly attractive woman opened it. "Hello? Wilson, what brings you here?"

"Hi Sherry." he replied, some what sheepishly. "Amber's in the hospital right now. She was on the bus that crashed the other night."

"Oh no..." she mumbled sadly, looking up at them. "But what can I do? I don't know a thing about medicine if that's what you need."

"No, Sherry--"

"Look," House interrupted bluntly; "what ever's wrong with her is not a response to the crash. She's unconcious, and we need to find out where she was on the night of the bus crash so we can figure out what happened. Do you know any thing that might help us?"

Wilson looked at Sherry with a look that was apologetic for his friend.

"Hmm." she thrummed out thoughtfully. "I called her that night. She said some thing about a bar and told me she'd have to call me back. I figured she hadn't gotten back to me because she was busy and tired. "

"Did she tell you what bar she was going to?" asked Wilson, much more kindly than House had.

"I think so. " Sherry sighed, the look on her face making it evident that she was trying to remember. "I'm not sure what the name of it was. But I think she mentioned some thing about how close it was to a couple of diners."

"Hmm. I don't know of any bar near a diner. Thanks, Sherry. "

"You're welcome. Good luck trying to figure this out! I'll come in to visit her when she starts recovering."

"Thanks!" smiled Wilson, turning and walking away with House.

"Well, that was close to a dead end." House murmured, slightly annoyed.

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He walked back into the hospital and got back up to his office as quickly as he could. The Vicodin was finally beginning to kick in, but he was too bothered with being frustrated to notice. He sat down in his office chair, and- this time- began going through his voice messages. A few from Cuddy, asking him to meet her in her office...nothing out of the ordinary. House was disgruntled- until he thought of some thing else. He pulled his pager out and began looking through some of his old messages. Several from his team, alerting him of problems that were occuring.

Every thing kept on leading to dead ends!! Four hours had never seemed so much like an entire lifetime.

Wait! Maybe one of the people who'd ridden the bus would know where it had stopped! Suddenly feeling hopeful, he grabbed his cane and left the room as quickly as possible.

The person who's room he went to seemed to be all right. He was waiting on a kidney transplant- according to the charts. "Patrick," he said, walking nearer to him; "you were on the bus that crashed the other night?"

"Yes." he responded, a slight question in his tone. "I remember you. You got on the bus, too. You were drunk. " he took a deep breath and situated himself, then looked at the clipboard. "You're a doctor?"

"Where did I got on the bus?"

"You came stumbling out of a bar--"

"What. Bar." House growled out, irritated- though he wasn't sure if he was more irritated by people who wouldn't give him information or the fact that he couldn't remember.

"I think it was Sharries bar. " the guy replied. "Nice place. Decent prices."

"Thanks." he muttered, picking up and taking off out of there. Meanwhile, he had to figure out how to restore his memories to their proper place...