A/N: Sorry, I so rarely write canon, I forgot to include a warning in my summary that this story includes spoilers up to and including "Joy to the World".

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Stave III: The second of the three spirits

House woke up, lying in bed, wondering if everything he'd just experienced was a dream, hallucination or nightmare. He looked at the clock: 1.58am. Damn. His time with Georgia had felt like hours, it must have been a dream. But then, why did it follow on from what he'd experienced in the living room – Marley appearing on his television set?

Perhaps it was just all part of this weird flu he seemed to have. He groaned as he reached up, grabbing the glass of water he was thankful he'd put on the nightstand. His throat was dry and his eyes scratchy – all he wanted was to sleep for hours and hours . . .

"No rest for the wicked, House, you should know that."

This time, in comparison to Georgia's gentle intrusion, House was astonishingly and instinctively frightened. The glass slipped from his grasp and landed with a loud crack on the floor. He knew that voice and he knew for a fact that she was dead. Irretrievably and irrevocably dead. With a compulsion that he barely understood, he looked over to the door where the voice had come from.

"Amber," he said, not missing the tremor in his own voice.

"Hello, House."

"You're dead."

"Yes."

"You didn't get off the bus."

"No."

"And now what? You're a ghost?"

"What do you think I am?" Amber walked further into the bedroom, moonlight from between the slats of the blinds illuminating her pale face.

"You're the fucking ghost of Christmas present," House muttered.

"Look upon me," Amber replied, her tone sarcastic.

"I said I'd read the book, not memorised it," House replied, his tone just as acidic.

"You have never seen the like of me before," Amber said casually, but her voice had the ethereal quality House remembered from the time – the hallucination? – on the bus.

"Really?" he asked.

She sat down on the edge of his bed and gave him a frank stare. "Well, not really, no. We've actually talked quite a bit, haven't we?"

"The bus?"

"Yes the bus. And those other times. The dreams. The nightmares. The ones you'll never tell Wilson about."

House swallowed hard.

"Touch my robes."

"What?"

Amber's gentle, ethereal tone vanished replaced by the harsh, bitchy voice House was far more used to. "I said grab a handful of my frock, diagnostic boy, or this is going to be one very short ride."

Amber was wearing quite a fetching mini-dress, but House figured this probably wasn't the time to be commenting on how it set off her legs. Instead, he grabbed a handful of the meagre skirt in one hand and gave her a nervous smile – for lack of any other appropriate response.

"Hang on."

After the foggy flight into the past with Georgia, House was vaguely prepared for the bizarre sensation of weightlessness, but while Georgia had been a calm and careful driver, Amber was a speed demon. If it had been a normal day, and he wasn't accompanied by his best friend's dead lover, House might have actually enjoyed flying unassisted at breakneck speeds through the streets of Princeton. As it was, all it did was make his stomach clench and his eyes water.

With a sense of inevitability, House realised they were headed for Cuddy's house. They swept down her street, along her driveway and then, sickeningly, through the walls and into her kitchen.

Cuddy was wearing a white baby doll cotton nightie and fluffy slippers that made House smile despite his stomach's violent churning from Amber's reckless flying. Dean Martin was crooning Baby It's Cold Outside and Cuddy sang along quietly as she pulled cling wrap over a large bowl and put it carefully in the fridge. House had been about to wonder aloud why she was up, cooking, in the middle of the night, but then remembered her planned Christmas lunch. Cuddy was preparing food for the people in her life that counted as family. And he was invited. He hadn't actually told her whether or not he'd be coming – in fact he'd told her he probably would be too hung over to be bothered. He'd seen the flicker of hurt in her eyes before she'd covered instinctively, some barb about the condition of his liver.

"Why are we here?" House demanded, his natural defence mechanism – being overbearing and arrogant – finally clicking into place.

Amber rolled her eyes. "And I thought you were smart."

House sighed and leaned against the kitchen wall as Cuddy continued to potter around. She pulled out a boldly patterned circular tin from a cupboard, opened it and lifted out a large, old-fashioned fruit cake. He remembered that he'd told her once that he liked fruit cake. His mother used to make it; a recipe she'd picked up from an English woman she'd befriended at one of their many homes during his childhood. Cuddy pulled out a bottle of brandy and opened it, filled the cap with the warm liquid and then carefully sprinkled it over the cake.

House couldn't help himself, he stepped forward, standing close to Cuddy, and took in a deep breath. His nostrils were filled with the smell of brown sugar, raisins, brandy, and Cuddy's perfume. He could have sworn there was a shadow of the patchouli he remembered from the dorm, and the smell of the cake reminded him of his mother and the occasional happy Christmas they'd had – generally the ones when his father had been away. Fuck the ghost of Christmas past, the smell evoked not just the memories but the feelings of the past. The simple childhood joy of finding a long-wished-for toy under the tree. The indulgent smile of an adult at a child's laughter. The soft kiss from someone you love.

Cuddy was still humming along to her Christmas CD, Dean Martin having moved on to Silver Bells. She returned the cake to its container – House a little sad that he couldn't somehow steal just a little piece – and washed up a couple of items in the sink. Finally she took one last look around the kitchen, then turned off the CD and headed towards the bedroom, turning off lights as she went.

House and Amber were left standing in the darkened kitchen, House unsure whether or not to follow.

"So?" he asked, covering his uncertainty with bluster. He had forgotten that Amber was there, and wondered what she had thought of his moment with the cake.

"So?" Amber echoed, crossing her arms in a mirror of his posture.

"So why are we here? Aren't you supposed to show me some poor family with a gimpy child and no money, and yet demonstrate how happy they are?"

"Would that prove anything to you?" Amber asked.

"No," House admitted.

"So why are we here?"

"I don't know!" House was getting frustrated. "You're the ghost! You're supposed to be in charge here!"

"Go to her bedroom," Amber said, still calm in the face of House's outburst.

House rolled his eyes. "Great," he muttered, but obeyed. He walked down the corridor, into the room he'd only been in once before – and that had been without Cuddy's permission. He guessed that this also counted as being without her permission, but then given this was a hallucination, it probably didn't matter anyway.

Cuddy was in her room, but not yet in bed, wandering around doing all those little jobs that women seemed to need to do before getting into bed. House stood back, against a wall, trying not to get in her way even though he knew she couldn't see him. She was still humming some stupid Christmas song as she rubbed lotion on her hands and arms, and then pulled down the covers and climbed into bed.

"I know what she's thinking," Amber said, her voice startling House who'd been getting used to the quiet of the bedroom.

"Yeah? You couldn't hang around for next week when I'm back at work could you? That'd be pretty handy to know the next time I have to negotiate with her over a patient."

Amber ignored him. "She's thinking about the fact that this is the fifth Christmas Eve in a row she's spent in bed alone."

House's sharp retort died on his lips as he looked over at Cuddy, staring at the ceiling, her eyes sad but resigned. As if she'd accepted that this was the way it was going to be. As if she wasn't the sexy, vivacious, powerful woman that he knew her to be, someone who had every right to a man in bed next to her and a brood of children down the hall.

"Why?" House asked quietly. It was a question he'd never thought to ask before.

"Because she thinks that the man she's in love with isn't in love with her."

House turned to Amber with a puzzled expression, but before he could speak, she put her hands on her hips and gave him a daggers stare. "House, if you dare ask me 'Who's she in love with?' I will personally remove your testicles with a pair of blunt secateurs."

House snorted. "That's not what I was going to ask." Although the question had occurred to him. Really? he wanted to ask Amber. Is she really in love with me? The next logical question of course was Why?, but with the intuition of dreams, House realised that was a question Amber couldn't – or wouldn't – answer.

Cuddy sat up and turned to her nightstand, opening the bottom drawer. From deep inside it, she pulled out a navy blue, drawstring satin bag.

"No," House said, turning to Amber. "You didn't bring me here to watch this." House was torn between his instinctive desire to watch what he thought was about to happen and a sudden – and quite unexpected – desire to protect Cuddy's privacy. From Amber, anyway.

To House's great relief, Cuddy reached into the bag and pulled out a journal and a beautiful, obviously expensive, fountain pen. In the corner Amber chuckled maliciously at House's incorrect assumption, and, after searching for, and failing to find, an appropriate put down, House simply ignored her. Instead, he walked over to the bed, settling himself on the bed next to Cuddy, leaning against the pillows. Her hair was spread next to him, her body in arm's reach.

"Will she feel it if I touch her?" House asked, hoping Amber would take the question as a simple matter of practicality and not some deep-seated desire. He was just concerned about the fact that he was so close to her.

"Not as such, no," Amber answered, matter-of-fact, leaning against the wall in the corner. "She might feel something. It depends on the touch. She might feel a nice, light shiver, or it could be a cold feeling of dread."

House didn't bother to ask what the difference in the touches was. He figured he could work that out and decided to try his best not to touch her at all – just in case.

Cuddy opened the journal, and House sat up higher on the bed, carefully inching closer to her warm body in order to have a better view. First she flicked through some previous pages. House wasn't surprised to note that every page had the date neatly and clearly printed at the top. From the dates it was clear that Cuddy didn't write in the journal particularly often, perhaps once a month or so. What did startle him was the frequency with which the name "House" appeared in the pages. But then, he figured, he probably was the staff member she had the most to do with – his cases often required her approval or her input. He doubted the head of the cardiology practice had to consult Cuddy before performing a triple bypass, or installing a pacemaker.

Cuddy turned to the first unmarked page and took the lid from her fountain pen, shaking it to get the ink running. On pressing it to the page to write the date, the pen let out a blotch of purple ink and she swore under her breath. House smiled, both at the unladylike swearing and the ink. Purple prose indeed.

Finally Cuddy had the pen working as she wanted and began writing.

2008 – summed up? Loss. And hope.

Cuddy underlined the word "loss" vehemently and House looked from the journal to her eyes, surprised to find them glassy with tears.

I thought as you got older you were supposed to add things to your life, not subtract them, she continued. When I look back, my school days, college days, I had so many possibilities. It feels like each of those possibilities is slowly winking out as the years go by, just like those cheap Christmas lights I bought at WalMart.

House was tempted to smile at the almost teenage angst of Cuddy's words, but the serious, sad expression on her face quickly extinguished his contempt.

And yet, I might still have a chance – foster parenting, and then who knows? I don't know what I'll do if the same thing happens again – I can't go through it again.

Cuddy paused, the end of her pen slipping between her lips as she thought. After a minute or so she began writing again.

I can't think about what else I might be losing by trying to be a mother again. But am I kidding myself? Was he ever mine to lose?

Cuddy took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling, blinking hard.

"House, that's what a woman looks like when she's trying not to cry," Amber said, bitchily from the corner. "Just in case you didn't know."

House sneered at her, unwilling to admit that she'd got him with that one. Admitting that he did know would only prove how familiar he was with making women cry.

I tried this year. I really tried, Cuddy wrote. She took in a slow, shuddering breath, and obviously decided that writing in her journal was best left for another time. She slowly closed it shut, wrapped it and her purple-inked pen safely in their satin bag and then put it back in the drawer. She flopped back against the pillows, only to stare up at the ceiling again.

"House?" Amber called out softly.

House had been entranced by Cuddy's face, trying to work out what the words in her journal had meant. Loss? Sure, House got that. The loss of Joy had been hard on her. And hope? The new kid might just be hers. But in gaining the baby, what was she scared of losing? What was she wondering was 'hers'? Surely she didn't mean—

"House," Amber said again, interrupting his thoughts. She spread her arms out wide. "I want you to meet someone. Well, two someones." From behind her, in the dark shadows of the room, two children emerged, faces House was sure he'd never seen before. They reminded him of nothing so much as the spectral images of starving children from somewhere deep in countries House didn't even want to think about, let alone name.

"Who are they?" he asked Amber.

"This is 'Ignorance'," Amber said, putting her hand on one child's head. "And this is 'Want'." She put an arm around the other child's shoulders.

"Great," House muttered. He felt awkward, but then he figured lying in Cuddy's bed next to her without her knowing she was there, while a dead former employee stood in the corner introducing little Starvin' Marvin waifs would probably make the sanest man a little unsettled. "You want me to make a donation to Save The Children when I wake up?" he said, covering his deep perturbation with a quip.

Amber rolled her eyes. "They are the greatest causes of suffering in this world."

"And what the hell am I supposed to do about the world?" House was getting annoyed again. He'd have given anything to be back in his own bed. Scratch that – he'd have given anything to be here in Cuddy's bed – with no Amber in the corner – and with the ability to touch her in a way that would produce a hell of a lot more than a shiver.

Before Amber could answer, Cuddy got up out of bed and headed down the corridor. Intrigued, House followed her. Cuddy went into the living room and turned on the lights of her Christmas tree and then checked that the curtains were open, making sure the lights could be seen from the street. She paused a moment, the blinking coloured lights flickering strange bolts of colour across her face. In the darkness she smiled, her face lit up from within.

"Why is she smiling?" House asked. Amber and the two waifs had followed them out into the living room.

"Because she's happy," Amber said, her voice full of scorn at his question.

"But she was just wrote that this has been a crappy year."

"Yeah, it hasn't been a great one for her. But tomorrow all her friends are coming to her house to celebrate Christmas. She's spent hours cooking and preparing a meal for them. She's decorated to make things look special. She was even part of the neighbourhood decoration efforts, which is why she's out of bed right now, making sure the lights are all on."

"So because of one day this year, one day out of three hundred and sixty-four other crappy days, she's happy? She's crazy."

One of the waifs spoke up. "So a life with only moments of happiness is not worthwhile? One must be happy all the time?"

"Good question, Ignorance," Amber asked. "What do you think, House?"

"Hmph," House grumped, unwilling to answer the question. "And what about you?" he said, nodding to the other waif, Want. "Or are you too weak from hunger to speak?"

Want nodded slowly, his head rocking back and forward, the movement becoming more and more extreme until he was some hideous caricature of a clown, his mouth open obscenely, head back, head forward, a blur of motion. A combination of fear and vertigo began making House feel nauseous as Want's head sped up until House felt sure his spine must surely snap. But then slowly, slowly, Want's head began to reduce speed – head back, head forward - his features slowly becoming visible again.

Head back.

Head forward.

Gradually Want's features became clear again and with a growing sense of horror House found himself looking into his own face, somehow grossly distorted, his head far too large and healthy for the skinny, malnourished body it sat above.

"What the fuck?" House muttered, his knees feeling weak.

"Ready to go home, House?" Amber asked, smirking.

A clock on Cuddy's mantelpiece began chiming, and House looked over at it. Midnight. But wasn't it two am when he woke up? His brain hurt from everything he'd been through that night. Cuddy turned away from the Christmas tree and began walking back towards her bedroom.

Amber and the waifs began to laugh at him.

"Cuddy!" House called out, without really knowing why. "Lisa!"

Then he was falling, looking up at the cackling faces of Amber, Ignorance and his own grotesque head on Want's body. Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

His head hit pillows, his body cushioned by an unexpected mattress. He had barely time to catch his breath before he was overcome.

Sleep.