A/N-Thanks to all who have reviewed since the last chapter: IHeartHouseCuddy, KiwiClare, freeasabird14, JM, jaybe61, chebelle, LapizSilkwood, JLCH, Suzieqlondon, lenasti16, Pdubou, BabalooBlue, bere, Huddyphoric, huddy you are mine, Ana anamq, BJAllen815, Abby, dmarchl21, HuddyGirl, Alex, ikissedtheLaurie, Boo's House, Tori, Mon Fogel and bonnieyy77.

I expect to update again on Thursday.

-Savoring-

"I told you I'm going crazy," House explained, "I wasn't exaggerating, I really am losing my mind."

"Just tell me whatever you need to tell me," Cuddy encouraged, her hand resting on his arm.

He pushed himself up and sat back against the headboard, "I've been hallucinating. Five days now."

"By hallucinating you mean…," she led as she rolled on her side to face him.

He pulled the loose sheet from the bottom of the bed and covered them. "I mean I'm being tormented by a person who cannot possibly exist. And occasionally arguing back."

"Lots of things can cause hallucinations."

"I had tests run. I'm fine except…"

"The Vicodin?"

"Yea. I'm running out of options."

"OK," she nodded, attempting to look unconcerned, "you already decided to quit, so these are just additional facts that indicate that the decision to quit is the right decision. In a few days, it will all be over…no more Vicodin means no more hallucinations."

"I guess."

"Why wouldn't it?"

"It will or at least it should, however, what I've been hallucinating has made me aware of the fact that I'm pretty fucked up anyway. It's all stuff that's in my head. I just happen to be seeing it outside of my head right now."

"What are you seeing?"

House initially did not react, almost as if the question didn't reach his ears. Finally, with a slight shake of his head, he said, "Me, or at least a really fucked up version of me. Sort of…all of the worst of me, plus my own worst enemy all in one. He hates me, pretty much everything about me…hates the people who like me," House stopped, looking at Cuddy in a way that allowed her to realize that whatever he was hallucinating was not fond of her presence. "It's a constant reminder of how everything can and probably will go wrong."

"Want to hand her a phone…so she can call the men with the straitjackets?" House's hallucination poked. "You're making my case for me…doing all you can do to convince her that we are the worst possible choice for her. For anyone. Soon she'll know we don't deserve her…or our freedom."

"Can you see him now? Or hear him? Is it just a voice?" Cuddy asked.

"You should have nailed her while you could…there are no conjugals in the nuthouse," the vision provoked.

House looked at Cuddy, the concern that she would sneak from the room to call someone to lock him up looming over him. She sat up next to him and moved closer, leaning against his arm reassuringly.

"I can see him and hear him, both," House answered.

"What exactly does he say about you or the people who care about you? Specifically."

Young House sniffled and dabbed at his face with an imaginary tissue. "Poor widdle Gweg's feelings get hurt?" he said using a childlike tone. Then he sounded angry, "Boo-fucking-whoo. Tell her your daddy didn't like you and mommy didn't protect you. Are you hoping she'll never, ever see you as a man? Because if you are, you're doing a great job."

"It doesn't matter what he actually says," House told Cuddy. "It's proof that I'm crazy. That what exists inside my head is nothing that people want to be around."

"I don't exist in your head I am you," the vision pronounced victoriously.

"Basically, it questions your motivations and the motivations of those around you?" Cuddy asked.

"In part," House agreed.

"Makes you feel like a failure, substandard, unlovable?" she continued.

House stared at the hallucination, who was standing in front of him at the end of the bed, playing an invisible violin. House looked down at his hands and nodded once. "The more you open up, the harder you'll fall," the vision warned. "You'll tell her everything and she'll pity us, and then she'll realize just how fucked up we are, and she will run. Then she'll know everything, she'll hold all of the cards, and we'll still be alone."

"Doesn't really matter what he says, what matters is how do I get rid of it? Not just the hallucination but what it comes from? Those thoughts are there, in my head. Some of them anyway," House answered her.

"I am you," the hallucination said, slinking forward to stand directly next to the pair at the side of the bed. "You can't kill me. You can detox fifty times and you'll always feel like the unworthy bastard that you are. Would you like to know why? Because you are that unworthy bastard, and you're smart enough to know it. These thoughts have been in our head almost forever, and they aren't leaving."

"You know," Cuddy said, somberly, "feelings like that are part of who you are."

"Told you," the hallucination gloated.

"So you see me that way too. Great," House said dryly, "that gives me lots of confidence. Tons of reasons to try."

"Not like that," Cuddy said, bumping into his torso with her elbow. "Everyone has that voice. I do. You just have to see yours more directly right now without your more rational mind to balance it out. I can imagine that, unmuted, it would be really overwhelming."

"I don't think you have the same voice," House said disbelievingly.

"The same? No," Cuddy answered, "but similar, yes. My fears aren't the same as yours, although I guess some of them are. The voices that make me wonder if I'm completely incapable of a relationship. The ones that make me wonder if you were right and my desire for a child was selfish? The ones that make me wonder if I really can be a good mother? The ones that make me question my career path and whether or not I overacted when I fired that new nurse last month?"

House stared at her, searching, "Like those. But I don't care about firing someone and I'm sure I'd be a horrible mother."

Cuddy smiled and tried to sound teasing, "I thought the firing one was a fear we didn't share, and you know as well as I do that you desperately try to stifle your maternal instincts."

He nodded, attempting to smile back at the joke.

She took hold of his forearm, moved it onto her lap and still felt surprised that he allowed it. "When you were in the bathtub, I had lots of time to think. I kept hearing that lingering thought in the back of my head that told me that there is no way you could ever want me because you imagine the worst possible me. You see…a controlling woman…who adopted a kid for purely selfish reasons…you think I blew my way to the top and that I'm out to destroy you. Why would any man be capable of caring for a woman that he sees like that?"

"I admit that I think you like control," he confessed, "but I have never thought that you slept or blew or tickled your way to the top. I don't think you want to destroy me but…" House stopped and Cuddy waited, the air so thick and tense that it was like breathing plasma. The hallucination began to speak again and House spoke over it, "I know that if I let you get that close…it gives you the power to hurt me if you want to. As for the kid, part of it may be selfish. You felt that you were missing something. There's nothing wrong with knowing what you want and going after it."

Cuddy stiffened, bracing for harsh words that she expected would mirror his accusations when she originally wanted to adopt a child. He could see the immediate instinct to protect herself that she had honed as finely as he had over the years.

"Don't get all defensive," House countered, "You had a need and you met it. That's why people have kids, get married, have careers, go on adventure vacations…it's why some people devote their lives to charity…to fill a need that they have. Even the most selfless act is done for personal reasons. Some people commit 'selfless' acts to atone for past sins, as a way to feel superior, for the attention or out of guilt. A person's reasons are…inherently selfish because they are a person's own reasons and something must motivate them. Some people feel good when they give away their earthly possessions or feel they've earned their spot in heaven. No matter what your reason, the kid benefits too. She's lucky. She would have had nothing, and now her life is-" House paused, filled with thought and hesitation, "The world would be better off if more people wanted a kid as badly as you did. You've tried, waited, have been disappointed. You must…value her."

She nodded, "I love her."

"There might be fewer hateful bastards like me if there were more parents like you."

"House…that's-"

Cuddy was tearing up so he interrupted. "Don't overreact. All that means is that most parents are really shitty."

"OK," she nodded, grinning in spite of his words because she could see the strength of the compliment in his eyes. "Questioning yourself is human. I'm sure your voice is harsh, but it is with everyone. It always has been…at least as long as I've known you. Sometimes the things that make us great or unique or brilliant…are also the things that torment us."

"So you do think he's right?"

"Well, no," she answered, shaking her head. "There are probably kernels of truth in some of his statements, which is why what he says bothers you, and other times he tells you things because he knows what you fear. He has complete access to all of your hopes, fears and memories. That makes your hallucination a very powerful voice who has the complete blueprint of who you are. No one else knows you like you do."

"So if it's part of me…no matter what I do, it will always be in my head, meaning that I really am that fucked up. I have no place being with you…being with anyone if part of me is thinking the things that I think. It means that part of me knows there is no hope for me."

"No," she stated firmly, "it means part of you fears there is no hope for you. It's completely different. You don't want to get rid of it because if you kill it, you will kill part of you."

"Sounding pretty hopeless here."

"Could you shut her up," the hallucination ordered. "She's much less annoying when she's quiet."

Cuddy saw House look toward the hallucination and purposefully redirected him to look at her. She began, "You need to allow yourself to know what that part of you thinks, because it's part of the whole puzzle. It's like discovering all of the symptoms a patient is exhibiting. Ignore one or two symptoms, and you may be misdirected when you're searching for a diagnosis. Acknowledge that it's pointing out fears or hopes. Then, you can learn when to tell him to shut up because something simply isn't true. You have to learn when your doubts are real, and when your doubts serve no purpose other than to attempt to destroy everything you have…when it wants to prevent your happiness. You aren't loathsome or heartless, but I think part of you knows that it's easier to see yourself that way and to make others see you that way too. If people think you're heartless and miserable it keeps them away. And if they're away, they can't hurt you."

"What if the things that I don't want to hear…are actually right?"

"Ask me. Ask what I think about your doubts."

"You're biased."

"If you think so, fine," she conceded, "but if you accept that, then it follows that I must actually care about you enough to be biased. So…if your hallucination or your mind tells you that I don't care, then it must be wrong."

"Or you care because I'm an employee and you need me at work."

"Remember when Wilson quit? I needed him as head of oncology, I really did. Searching for a replacement was a nightmare. But…I was never in his bed naked. I'm not here to keep a doctor at work, I'm here with you. This…is not about Princeton-Plainsboro."

House seemed to agree, although hesitantly. "I don't know if I can suddenly decide that what he thinks is bullshit, wave a wand and then I'm fine."

"I don't think so either. Maybe you need help. There are a few people you can talk to at the place where I'm taking you. They have counselors."

"You said it wasn't a rehab."

"It isn't, not at all. But, there are professionals on hand who might be able to refer you to someone or help you directly."

"I tried a shrink. It didn't work. Going actually could have killed me," House sighed his resignation, recalling his motorcycle accident.

"Maybe you tried the wrong shrink or didn't give it enough time. Or maybe you weren't ready yet when you went."

"Maybe."

"I'm going to guess that there are probably reasons why you…think so little of yourself in so many ways. I have a feeling that maybe there are some things you need to look at. I know you have not taken Kutner's death well. I wonder how well you've taken everything that happened last year with the crash and everything that happened with Wilson," Cuddy said, feeling as if she had struck several chords.

"Maybe I don't want you to know about every shitty moment and low point in my life."

"So don't tell me. I'm willing to listen but no one said you have to trust me with every secret. A fresh point of view could be good too."

"I guess," House replied, looking distressed.

"You don't have to be ashamed or apologetic of any of the parts that make up who you are, you just have to know which of those parts to be mindful of, which to disregard and which to give credence. All of these little parts of you…they make up the whole. I've fallen for the whole you. Not the doctor, not just the nice parts…you. Some of those parts are angry or complex or difficult and, believe it or not, I'm OK with that. Everyone is fucked up in their own way. I'm not interested in innocence or perfection."

"I see. So I'm not the first guy who you were about to have sex with, who stopped to tell you that he was having hallucinations," he said, in a bitter, joking fashion.

"Happens all of the time," she teased back, yawning apologetically and wiggling even closer to him.

"You seem calmer about this than I'd expect. Are you real?"

Cuddy laughed, "If I'm not real, then we're both hallucinating. I think once you get the Vicodin out of your system, the hallucinations will be gone, and then we can see where you are after that. It's part of you, so it isn't like you're hallucinating some murderous spirit who's telling you to kill me." He didn't respond at first so she turned to look at him, "You aren't, right? Your hallucination doesn't want you to kill me, does it?"

"Wouldn't be sitting here with you if it did, but you can go if you want."

"I didn't think you would, I just wanted to make sure since you didn't answer," she said as she yawned again.

House leaned down into the bed, bringing her along and pulling her tightly to him. "Sleep. Get sleep so we can finish here, get your crap and go fix my brain."

Her breathing became more rhythmic and he began to wonder if she was asleep. The pain in his leg felt like a constant, dull throb, and he realized he would need his Vicodin in the next two hours, chastising himself for not moving it closer before she fell asleep, half of her body draped over the left side of his. His body was filled with discomfort: a sore leg, a desire for an opiate that was already growing, a body feeling un-sated after a near encounter, a mind worried for its own sanity and pondering an uncertain future. He had the desire to jump ahead to Monday, tired of waiting, wanting to begin his detox so he could know what would happen at the end and, at the same time, he had a very real sense of sadness and even fear at the thought of losing the Vicodin he had depended on so often over the years. He had spent years trying to avoid pain, but his current trajectory would lead him to his own doom and he felt that his time was running out.

As he lay there, considering his own discomfort, he felt Cuddy breathing against his neck, her body against his side, warm and comforting. He was pinned between the iciness of his discontent and the warmth of her presence. Her hand pressed down more firmly into his lower stomach, massaging across his abdomen until she reached his hip, then she skated her fingers up along his side to his ribs and moved her flat palm across his chest. She repeated the motion a few times, her foot winding under his closest leg and sliding down his calf. Her hand seemed to wander with increasing confidence and with the combination of nails, the soft pads of her fingers and the flat stretch of her palm.

He had one arm around her, the hand that was on her side was lazily stroking along her waist from hip to rib. When her hand drifted farther below his belly button, down toward his pelvis, he pulled his arm around her and his stomach muscles tightened and twitched as he felt a powerful surge of arousal. "Cuddy, you're-"

"I'm what?" she asked, her voice at one time affectionate, aroused and arousing.

"You're…turning me on," he said, holding her moving hand still under his free hand.

"That might have been the point," she suggested.

"You're tired."

Her hand began to move again, still on his torso but in a way that continued to fuel his desire. He smirked at her, feeling worked up and starting to wonder if he should at least try to forget about the hallucination for a few minutes. She asked, "What's he saying right now?"

House shrugged and looked around, "He's not here."

"Maybe talking about him…confessing his existence, acknowledging what he is…got rid of him," Cuddy said hopefully.

"I doubt it. He'll be back."

"He's part of your mind," she began, "so what can we do that might quiet your mind?" Her hand drifted lower, her fingers lightly finding and caressing his sex. The scant touches did nothing but incite his need more, waking up portions of him that he was sometimes concerned were slowly dying.

She watched as his body tensed in anticipation and she worried that it was reservation. "Do you want me to stop?" she asked, momentarily resting her hand on his hip and questioning him in a very serious tone.

"That's up to you," he answered gruffly. "You're the one fondling a nutjob."

"You aren't a nutjob," she answered sternly. "Maybe you feel like I'm taking advantage of you?"

"God, no," he answered quickly. "I only told you because…if you're going to jump in the lake, you might want to know what's lurking under the water."

She sat partially upright, propped her body up on her elbow, "You look so…unhappy."

"I always look unhappy."

"No, not like this. I thought maybe we could…I don't know. It was nice…where things were going earlier."

"It was," he nodded, pulling her up on him, his eyes and hands examining the shape of her thighs as they parted over his body. "He'll come back. And if he comes back, he's gonna watch."

"I like an audience," she shrugged and giggled when his eyes went wide. "I'm kidding," she clarified. "Maybe he really is gone now that we've shined the light of day on him. If not, it isn't like it's a stranger. It's all part of you. Maybe I can convince you…all of you…that someone can have feelings for you. Maybe the way that I touch you," she slid a hand up to his face, lingering momentarily at a spot over his heart. "Or maybe the way I look at you," she said, her eyes finding his with brazen fondness. "Or maybe the way I kiss you will provide enough evidence to silence some of your questions."

She had his complete attention, the look of pain and unhappiness replaced with a blank, waiting stare. For a moment he seemed open to observing whatever she wanted to demonstrate. She leaned forward slowly, her lips, soft, demanding and faintly moist, landed perfectly against his own, slipping, in some ways directing his reaction, and in some ways accepting it with each new touch. He felt simultaneous rushes, the expected one surging to his erection, but the other unanticipated one, zinging a panged flutter to his heart. He acknowledged the fact that his feelings were real more easily than he did the thought that hers could be genuine. From his own observations, it seemed her words were true, that she was proving something to him.

He had experienced unattached sex far more often than he had experienced anything meaningful during the previous few years. He was very familiar with the more practical dial-up sex that he would order and pay for from time to time and this certainly was not that. The early moments of the encounter were filled with opposing notions as he relished the pleasant differences between paying for an orgasm and being made love to by someone who actually cared for him. It felt like the memory of a touch like that was so distant in his past that it seemed a faint whisper in a history cluttered with less enjoyable noises. The other element thrown in obvious relief was the difference of a lonely night spent so recently when he stared at his ceiling, a night like so many others that was characterized by pain and frustration.

A few nights earlier, he lay in that bed, rubbing his thigh and wishing that the Vicodin that he had taken, enough to render most people unconscious, would offer some reprieve from the pain that was consuming his body and mind. That night, while he hated his mangled thigh and his mind plagued with thoughts of a dead former employee, he felt his bed shift and when he turned, he stared at the face of his youth. His hallucination was never gone for long after that moment.

Days after the first appearance of his angrier, exaggerated, younger self, Cuddy was above him, whispering and breathing her thoughts of attraction, affection and desire, not spitting hateful derisions and feeding into a mind that already found its owner's existence superfluous. "Are you OK?" she asked.

He nodded quickly, perhaps a bit too eagerly for his often emotionally noncommittal exterior, but he enjoyed the way it made her smile, realizing that she probably wanted to be wanted too, and that having that want satisfied probably felt good to her as well. He pushed himself up on his elbows to meet her mouth more assertively, wanting her to know that he was not disinterested. When they broke to take breaths deeper than the tiny ones they stole between kisses, he said with words sounding more of rasp than voice, "You make me feel good."

"Do I?" she prompted.

He nodded slowly, his eyes training on hers. He grabbed the pillow, propping up his head to free his hands, and he started to study her body. His hands mirrored each other, moving from her hips to her breasts, palming them and caressing in ways less desperate than he had earlier, his thumbs and forefingers teasing her nipples. The fingertips of both of his hands followed her stomach, his thumbs eventually finding her heat while his fingers extended to her hips. "I want to make you feel as good as you are making me feel," he stated firmly.

"You already are," she answered.

"I could do better, keeping in mind that I'm not twenty-five anymore."

"I'm not either," she shrugged, scooting forward so that his length rested between her warm folds while her fingers continued to touch him and he continued to touch her in ways he had not been permitted to in ages.

"Except I seem to be worse for the w-"

House stopped speaking when she moved forward with seductive elegance, bringing her hands to the mattress next to his shoulders and rippling her upper body closer to him, her lips near his. She rocked forward, moving her heat along his length, coating his sex with wetness but not allowing him entrance, and watching him surrender entirely to what was occurring. He was giving into pleasure instead of submitting to hopelessness, and she heard an anticipative sigh emerge from his body. She waited as long as she felt able, until the moment where his eyes began to look desperate and just as she was about to ask him, practically plead him, to finally be inside her, she felt him pressing at her entrance. She gasped as she jerked her hips toward him while he lifted toward her. They groaned together, holding still momentarily, allowing the rush of feeling and sensation to consume the last vestiges of coherent thought.

At that point, they both were tired. House's continuous battle with emotional and physical pain had exhausted him. The feelings in both of them that had been simmering for quite some time were allowed to rush to the surface during a few hours of vulnerability and openness that strangely may not have even happened had the participants not been individually either concerned or nearly shattered. Their behavior was, for them, impulsive and reckless, a covenant entered into at a time of unprecedented upheaval, a treaty forged for the purposes of survival and with the hope of one day thriving. And yet the insanity of it was lost on them because it seemed the next step, a moment to break beyond a long standing stalemate to start moving somewhere.

The retreats and returns of their bodies to each other were as natural and satisfying as if they had been quenching each other's thirsts for years rather than carefully avoiding too much contact. What started at first as something tender became rougher and more raw, beings searching for something they were so near to having in their grasps. They were chasing want and affection. He forgot that his body was weary as he tried to find her again and again while she met him willingly and desperately. She forgot that she was overwhelmed with trying to carefully balance a reality that was becoming increasingly top heavy. Their sounds were noises that could have possibly been words or parts of words but the meanings were strangely conveyed in spite of the incoherent nature of their dialogue. There were pieces of praises, names and pleas, and hands that clung desperately to hold onto the immediate source of relief.

Her voice squeaked on a sharp inhalation and her entire body clamped down on him, her core pulsing its gratitude around his body in a way that made all of the feelings that he was already feeling ten times stronger. He opened his eyes in time to see her back arch, her arms stretched forward, her fingertips meeting the skin of his abdomen while she quivered and jerked above him, aware only of her own pleasure until she heard him cry out her name softly before joining her. Her abandon, one prompted by him, was the vision that encouraged his body to offer up all that remained of his strength while he let go, experiencing the seconds of bliss that his body had been chasing. She rocked on him gently, barely moving as they coasted down, as their breath returned to normal although their hearts were still racing when he pushed her hips down against him completely in a silent plea for her to remain near.

Equally as satisfying, but in an entirely different way, was the way that she didn't pull away from him. Her eyes were filled with emotion while she curled against his body and whispered into his ear, "Are you uncomfortable?"

He shook his head, closing his arms fully around her waist. He could feel his body drifting to sleep again.

He slept well, deeply, and woke to the sound of pills, shaking and tapping between the bottom of a pill bottle and the lid, but the first sight he saw was Cuddy sleeping next to him, her arm still stretched across him, one leg still over his waist. He stared at her, knowing that the hallucination wanted his attention, but refusing to offer it. "Ignore me all you want," the hallucination warned, "You know as well as I do, you only a have a few hours left with these."

His younger self jiggled the pills loudly, clapping the contents harshly in front of House's face. "Hi," Cuddy whispered, wiggling her lithe body against him.

"Hi," he answered, ignoring the hallucination, trying to cling to the more enjoyable space she was creating right in front of him.

She reached for him, trailing her fingers down his chest suggestively. "Up for another round before we get out of here?"

House rolled back to reach for the Vicodin that he put on his bedside table during the night, finding his hallucination gone yet again. He opened the bottle and shook two into his mouth, hoping she wouldn't notice the quantity. He put the bottle back down on the table and rolled back to her, pulling her against his body. "Another round?" he asked with mock incredulity.

She nodded, ineffectively hiding her smile.

"Absolutely," he smirked tiredly, savoring the fading taste of Vicodin on his tongue.