Disclaimer: Neither House MD nor X-files belong to me.

A/N: An impressively high number of you knows this episode. I hope you didn't fall prey to the temptation to look it up after I published the first chapter. *looks at you suspiciously*


Chapter 3

"House?" Cameron says with trepidation.

He faces her and replies, all humour gone from his voice, "I think that's us."

They scramble away from the dead bodies and stumble through the first door they can reach. However, they arrive on the other end of the same room. Everything is just as it was when they left it, including the corpses lying beneath the removed floorboards. They look at each other, confusion written all over their faces.

"Uh, House?"

"This is the same room," he says, his mind desperately trying to logically explain this situation.

They walk back through the door and yet again they found themselves in the same room where they first left it. Standing in the doorway, they keep glancing between both rooms, which are one and the same.

House walks into the room and Cameron follows.

Getting an idea, he explains it to her, "Ok, I'm beginning to get this. You go through that door," he points to the door on the other side of the room, "and you should come in through this one," he says pointing to the door nearest to them.

She nods, "Ok," and leaves the room, but does not return. House walks through the door on his side to find out the room is empty. Cameron has vanished.

"Cameron!" he calls out, only to get no answer. Suddenly the door slams shut and he walks towards it, opens it and enters the room on the other side. It is still empty.

"Cameron, can you hear me?"

He tries another door, it is locked. Spotting a huge metal vase nearby, he picks it up and uses all of his strength to swing it towards the doorknob, which breaks under the heavy weight. The door opens, but to his surprise he finds a red brick wall on the other side.

"Hey!"

He jumps at the sound of someone's voice.

There is an older man, wearing a green hat standing on the other side of the room.

"Who are you?" House asks him suspiciously.

The man answers him, "That's a question I should be asking being this is my house you're standing in. This isn't one of those home invasions, is it?"

He turns on the lights before he starts walking towards House.

House decides to take the safer route before he can figure this thing out, so he answers, "No."

The man seems pleased with his answer, "Good. Would you like me to show you the door?"

"That's very funny," answers House.

"I wasn't making a joke," says the guy shaking his head.

"Have you looked at the door?"

The guy glances at the door, "Uh-huh, I'm looking at it now."

House is starting to get mildly irritated, "Tell me what you see."

The guy remains completely indifferent, "I see a door with a broken lock. You going to pay for that?"

House turns around to check if the brick wall is still there. It is. He turns back towards the guy and says, "That's a door with a brick wall behind it."

The guy looks at him as if he were crazy, "Okay, sure."

House stares at the guy, trying to read his intentions, "You're playing tricks on me."

The guy answers him calmly, perhaps too calmly for such a situation, "If I am, I'm sorry but I don't know any tricks."

House raises his eyebrows, "Yeah? That's a trick in itself, isn't it? You've been playing tricks on us since we got here."

The guy looks mildly intrigued at that last piece of information, "Am I to take it we're not alone?"

Suddenly something clicks inside House's head. This whole situation seems almost surreal, there is no way this could really be happening. He must have got drunk again and is now hallucinating.

He chuckles, "Ah, that's very funny coming from a hallucination."

The guy begins laughing heartily and claps his hands, startling House. When he manages to calm down enough to speak he says "Yeah, oh…you almost got me fooled there. You think you're hallucinating, huh? Most people just think that I'm a ghost. I've seen a lot of strange folks coming around here with a lot of strange equipment, but most of them looked more pleased at seeing me. At least until they found out that I'm still very much alive."

Ok, scratch that theory, thought House. Perhaps he really is here in this house, but there are still so many questions left unanswered.

He better try finding some of the answers, "Strange folks?"

"Mm-hmm," the guy agrees.

"Like those folks under the floorb…" he turns around to find that the floorboards are in their place again. There is no sign of dead bodies anymore. Even the small table he moved at the time is back in its original place.

"How did you do that?" he asks surprised.

"I didn't do anything."

House looks back at the untouched floor. Did he imagine all of that? No, that can't be.

He looks at the guy, "There were corpses here… Bodies buried under the floorboards."

The guy gives him an almost sympathetic look and gestures for him to sit down on a nearby armchair, "Why don't you have a seat, son."


A/N: We'll soon be half way through the episode. I've decided to cut this one a bit short, hope you don't mind. No idea when the next chapter will be up, because I still have to write an essay on how Queen Elizabeth changed through her first years of reign. (that may take a while) *sigh*