The door slammed shut behind Cuddy and it rang out into the silence of her house. Leonardo walked ahead of her, further into the hallway, and quietly bent down to pull off his boots before placing them perfectly straight, heels against the wall. He paused there, slightly hunched over his kneeling legs, balancing himself with a single index finger on the floor.

Cuddy leaned back against the door, palms splayed against it's smooth surface, and with a hitched breath, her head thudded back against the wood and her eyes slid closed. She had never felt so conflicted; the emotions that raged deep in her conscious, multiplied only by that physical pain in her ribcage, throbbed persistently. It hurt so much that she felt hazy, and she bit her lip as two stray tears squeezed from between her lids.

It had never been as tormenting as this. From the moment his death registered to her and let lose an insanity, it had never been so terrible. She had been able to keep it, nearly dormant, in the back of her mind after `they` had concluded that she was just in a state of shock.

And then, five nights after the search for his body had failed, she came back to her empty house and collapsed, because it was the only thing she had had enough energy left to do.

That was when she had noticed that the pain, the indescribable pain that had appeared as spontaneously as her heart had broken, ran so much deeper than just hurt. She'd been a broken toy with just the whisper of laughter to survive on, and it hadn't been enough.

She found it ironic that they had met at the hospital (twenty years later) because of a loss, and that was exactly how everything else had ended. Only this time, it was so much more permanent.

The type of pin-break silence that loomed over Cuddy and Leo was broken when she heard the creak of his knees as he stood, and he walked towards her. She could taste the metallic stale of her blood on her tongue from where her teeth had impaled the skin of her lip.

Cuddy held her breath for two heartbeats before a gentle caress ghosted across her cheekbone and swept behind her neck. Leonardo gently lifted her head forwards, and her eyes fluttered open, the array of ethereal smoky blue and inky pain etching a history too intricate to ignore.

They locked gazes and her lips parted, opening and closing, but not being able to drag words up from her throat. He took a step forward and gently pressed his body up against hers and slowly untwined his fingers from the roots of her silky heavy hair. She heard the sweaty stick of his palms (despite how cold it was outside, it was warm in the doorway and in the air around them) as he pressed them against the door on either side of her head, and then they were so close that she was breathing his air and their noses were just touching.

She could feel the sexual tension radiating like a poison from Leonardo's body. It seeped through her veins and brought a flush back to her cheeks, and maybe it carved the idea of something good into her mind, but that was all it was... and all it ever would be, she murmured to herself with a wistful melancholy.

Leo was strong and soft and romantic, and in his presence, she smiled sometimes. A real smile; but, (as cliché as it sounded), how was she supposed to love him when she yearned for the thick, humid hot touch of another? How was she supposed to wait for a calm, affectionate reply when she expected a challenge in response to her challenge?

Nonetheless, whenever he'd find her reeling from something he could never hope to understand, he'd go to her and kiss her with a passion she only sometimes returned. Then, she'd let him into a sliver of her world, and he'd make her memory slightly less crisp for only a night, and sometimes it was enough.

She had learned long ago that you could never rely on any one thing except the fact that sometimes, you had to have the hope to try.

"Stay tonight." Her voice was deep and cracked with the intensity of her depression and tears, but he nuzzled his cheek against hers and nodded nearly imperceptibly against her.

So, she sobbed into his mouth and he all but held her up with his hands rolling down her arms. He hitched her leg over his hip and from there, the stigmatic ballad deafened her and she was blinded by the filmy fog of her tears.

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House sat on a crate of unpacked, unused batteries and his feet were propped up on a box of utensils. Why the fuck do we even have these? They used their hands like civilized freaks.

He grunted, and in all irony, he tapped the rubber tip of his cane- smooth, polished and mahogany- against the edge of the wall across from him.

He always kept it leaning against the black curtains that draped across his glass walls, right beside his stacked mattresses.

He didn't even use it anymore. It was useless because, after all, now he could walk without a stitch in his step. He was silent and graceful, a fluid amongst shadows... and he liked it that way. The cane was just a small, vivid epitome of everything else. The vicodin, (which didn't work against the pain in his chest. He'd tried- the bottles were still thrown haphazardly across the top of his dead television.) the throbbing, the medicine. The love.

The only thing he had left was the puzzle. It was as if everything else had been eclipsed and he'd been given exactly what he had always asked for (he suspected that he'd been cheated. The puzzle wasn't the only thing that he had wanted.)- a life stripped of feeling, (no winter wind bit at his knuckles and no ocean air would whip across his face) and want.

He didn't want anything except to not have what he had craved. He could almost visualize the smirk life would give him. Take that, you piece of chicken shit!

The doors quietly squealed open, dipping into the serene silence that had fallen across House's thoughts and Wilson stepped into the blackness, almost completely swallowed except for his silhouette that jutted out against the rectangular boxes of supplies. "House?" He murmured hesitantly, and House tipped his chin down to hide his smirk, though he didn't need to. Wilson was as good as blind in this dark.

"Uh... House?" His voice rose several octaves of confidence and he stepped further into the room. House chuckled darkly to himself and he could almost feel the uncertainty radiating off of his best friend. They had never learned to completely trust him, not after he had nearly decapitated Chase during the second week.

House dropped his cane and it clattered loudly to the floor, but he pulled back from the sound and observed what the oncologist's reaction would be. Wilson's hand fluttered warily up and he rubbed the back of his neck in stress, and he uttered a sigh. "House, where are you?" He was still tense and slightly jumpy, but fine nonetheless.

He was the one who trusted House the most, he knew.

With the elegance of an animal on the prowl, House materialized not three feet from Wilson and with a flourish of his hand, he bowed theatrically. "At your service, master." He drawled.

"Oh god!" Wilson jumped and his hands came up to stretch across the lines of his face. "You have got to stop doing that."

"It's so much fun to see you piss your pants, it really is." He strolled back over to where he had been sitting before and picked up his cane, leaning against the wall, the cane anchored in front of his legs that were crossed at the ankle. Wilson, with a barely perceptible shrug of submission and another sigh, slowly walked clumsily after the presence of House. He lightly bumped into a box full of more boxes before finding his way.

House knocked the wooden handle of his cane in rhythm against the crate of batteries and it echoed a hollow, sudden sound. Wilson leaned against the wall opposite him.

Neither of them spoke for several moments.

House puffed out his cheeks and contemplated what to say. It wasn't very common that they'd be like they used to, with their talks. Wilson would be his conscience and House would pretend to ignore everything that he'd say, but secretly digest every sentence and analyze it over and over, and over.

Because Wilson was his common sense. Not anymore, though. Not as often.

House would go off and jeopardize everything that was anything anymore. He'd eclipse them for weeks at a time and only appear to gruffly collect the supplies they gathered before disappearing again. Sometimes piano music would melt into the chasm that wasn't him, and sometimes they'd hear the thump of a large tennis ball against the wall in an operation room or against the unplugged fridge of the doctor's lounge.

Abruptly, he spoke. "Cameron represents innocence, or arrogance, which is stupidity or cluelessness." He exhaled deeply and paused for a moment, waiting for Wilson to arch an eyebrow and part his lips but not say anything. "Chase is survival, or preservation... and you are time, or amount of time." His voice was quiet and raspy, almost like he was afraid to disturb the balance of his sanity.

He stared off into nothing and his eyes were drawn downwards in an invisible reverie. "We're surviving, but just barely. We're surviving for something... but we don't know what, or anything. And time is going, because we..." he stumbled over his thoughts, "I..." he continued, almost resignedly, "have not figured out what any of it is. If it means fucking anything." House spit with revulsion and screwed his fists up until they were quivering power.

Wilson remained silent before supportingly replying, even though he had no idea as to how to react, "Maybe we shouldn't worry about why or how this is happening," neither of them missed how he said plural instead of just House, "but we should be wondering what to do about it..."

Wilson was just as calm as he'd ever been in any similar situation, despite the fact that his best friend could transform into a wolf thing and eat him if it... he... wanted, but there was almost an urgency behind the way they conversed, like they knew not how much time they had, but just that it was running out.

House just remained quiet, contemplating, but he loosened and his shoulders rolled down his back. He frowned.

"Quit being my humanity. Maybe I want to be a five foot lumbering beast!" He exclaimed in fake insult and glared at Wilson, who just laughed through his nose, humoring him.

"Want to go play Monopoly?" Wilson offered softly, and placed a hand on House's shoulder, to gesture his friendship as much as it was a stiff understanding.

"I can't believe you'd tried to demote me to stealing fake money from you." House walked by him anyways and Wilson followed quickly after, sure to follow his path so as to not trip over a box of battery-powered toothbrushes.

It was almost normal, they way they'd walk from the placid dark storage room and into the moonlight-lighted halls to go play a board game. It was almost normal, they realized, how easy it was, amongst the chaos of their unjustifiable existences...

if it wasn't for the looming feeling that they really did have nothing, and House had twice as less.

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hm. so, this basically explains what each character (besides House) symbolizes in their messed-up storyline.

to clarify, wilson and cameron and chase are extremely wary of house because he is dangerous, and he doesn't let them forget it, but he is house, so they trust him to a degree. for example, they trust him with their lives... they just don't trust him to not try to kill one of them in the process.

they are all friends, though, because honestly- you can't not be relatively close with people who are doomed with you for however long.

also, wilson is hesitant to surprise or be surprised by house, but they are comfortable with each other most of the time, and they are still best buddies. wilson knows him the best.

if you took the time to read, take the time to review. i need to know what you all thinks is good, and what isn't. (i don't want compliments that aren't true.) i read every single one, regardless of if i reply or not.