The main surgeon burst out of the room, his lip bleeding profusely; "he's hallucinating – must have mistaken me for a punch bag or something" he said as he hastily wiped his mouth on a wet towel. "Is he on any medication...prescription or otherwise?"

"He was on vicodin…but I think he's stopped taking it and replaced it with something else about a week ago" Cuddy said hopelessly.

"But you don't know what with…?" the surgeon confirmed; "Okay, we're doing the surgery – I don't care what he's on; but we won't be able to manage the post op pain if we don't know what he's been taking prior to the accident-"

"I've got three doctors on it as we speak…" Cuddy said enigmatically; the surgeon sighed, rescrubbed and returned to the OR. "His team were worried about him, they've been watching his every move for the past week – he's been acting bizarre…even for him" she added for Wilson's benefit, even though he seemed to be lost in thought "as soon as I told them about the crash – they wanted to help, so I told them to find out what he's been up to – they came up with the switch of meds"

Wilson nodded blankly, he had also noticed House's erratic behaviour lately; he'd put it down to the fact that the man had flu…or at least, he'd claimed he'd had flu. The past week had been full of difficult cases, at least for House it had; he'd taken on three patients simultaneously, keeping him busy, run down almost, and trying to focus on his work. "He was detoxing." Wilson stated, knowing that Cuddy had already figured it out for herself.

"He's on something else for the pain…I was hoping he'd told you what that 'something else' was." She sighed dejectedly, sitting next to him.

"I didn't even know he was thinking about changing his meds…guess he doesn't trust me anymore."

Cuddy frowned, ignoring the last comment, "you didn't notice anything different about him lately?" she asked as she flicked open the copy of House's medical file she'd bought with her.

"He seemed…pleased with himself this morning; the proud kind of pleased, not the smug kind…" Wilson said quietly, deep in thought; he flinched as the impact of the crash came out of nowhere to smash through his memory, 'shit'

"You okay?" Cuddy asked as she looked up from the file, concerned with how much Wilson had paled over the last minute.

"Yeah…just worried" he replied truthfully as he let his gaze wander back through the small window to where his friend lay, now motionless...

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Meanwhile at PPTH...

"Why was he detoxing in the first place?" Chase asked the other two fellows as they sat at the huge conference room table with their own copy of House's medical records.

"Maybe he had another bet with Cuddy" Foreman answered, throwing another set of test results to Cameron; "he tested his blood a couple of weeks ago – I'd say the results scared him into giving up the narcotics"

"They should have…according to this – his liver was showing the first signs of permanent damage" Cameron said as she double checked the results then looked up at the other two; Chase looked taken aback and Foreman looked purely disappointed – he hadn't really wanted to be right about his boss' apparent ailment.

"Here's one from yesterday" Foreman said as he held up another set of results, "numbers look better…Cuddy was right about him giving up the vicodin then"

"He was scared" Chase mused out loud, "that's why he's been so moody lately"

"He's always moody – his liver failing just gave him another excuse for it" Foreman muttered as he read through a medical report from two weeks ago; "huh…Wilson didn't do his medical"

"Why would you automatically assume that his best friend would perform his medical?" Chase asked haughtily, swinging his legs off the table and heading over to the sink to grab a cup of coffee.

"Because he performed the last 10 years worth of House's medicals" Foreman replied patronisingly as he held up the thick manilla folder as if to prove his point.

"Oh…well, maybe they had an argument or something" the young doctor replied as he spilt coffee on the paper work strewn about on the table, "shit"

"Nice one – now he'll never know we've looked in his file" the neurologist stated sarcastically as he surveyed the amount of liquid that Chase was desperately attempting to quell with one measly paper towel.

Cameron, who had been busily engrossed in House's lab results, briefly looked up at the commotion and sighed; "Cuddy wants us to find out what he's replaced the vicodin with" she reminded the boys, exasperated with how little concern they were showing over their boss.

"He's not gonna die Cameron, he's too stubborn." Foreman snorted, causing Chase to smirk involuntarily – "unsympathetic bastards" she huffed under her breath.

It obviously wasn't the reply she was waiting for, both men realised, as she tore out a page from the records and snatched the phone from under Chase's nose angrily. "I'm going to ring the doctor who carried out his medical – you two, either do something, or get out before I really lose my temper" Foreman and Chase looked at each other in amazement, Cameron was peeved about something – whether it had anything to do with House or not was a mystery…'women!'

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"This is getting ridiculous" House sighed as he awoke to find himself driving along the high road to work; it was early morning and uncharacteristically sunny for a change. 'Just like this morning' he mused.

"What's ridiculous?" Wilson's voice coming from the passenger seat startled him and he turned to look at him in disbelief.

"Shit..." House stated as he turned to focus back on the road, although it was pretty pointless given that he knew he was dreaming about driving and not actually doing it.

"Are you sure you're alright? Maybe I should've driven in – you look like you're still suffering with that flu..." the oncologist trailed off when he stretched his legs and yawned hungrily.

"Yeah 'cos you look so much better, all hungover and sleep deprived" House heard himself say; although he knew for a fact that he hadn't moved his lips. He willed himself to stay silent as his friend continued to chat away to him, a sense of deja vu plaguing him as he listened intently to the conversation.

"I still can't believe I got plastered and you didn't touch one drop – you've never been sick enough to be put off vintage scotch on a Thursday, you must have been feeling pretty shitty...maybe you should have asked Cuddy for a couple of days off" he looked over to see the concerned younger man frowning at him.

"I'm fine...just the flu" again, he said it, yet didn't say it...but he remembered saying it. 'Now this is weird, confusing and unmistakeably trippy...I remember this.' he thought, completely spooked by the new development of his sub conscious.

"It was my turn to drive-" Wilson whined half-heartedly in the background, "you shouldn't even be going to work – you look awful, do you wanna pull over and let me go from here?"

"No! Seriously – enough with the beating yourself up; if I had a problem with driving, I'd have made you drive by now, so shut up already..." House's voice came sounding thick and exasperated as he made a sharp right turn through the narrow, tree lined road.

Suddenly, a small sports car came hurtling past House's window, making them both jump and curse simultaneously. Before House had a chance to do anything in reaction to it, the sports car attempted to nip past the small sedan in front before an oncoming truck approached; failing miserably to make it all the way past, he inadvertently nicked a van in front of the small car, causing the van to spin out in front of House's already beaten up vehicle, and the small sedan to hurtle towards the ditch the other side of the road.

"Shit" House heard as he struggled to swerve out of the way of the van, which was now facing them, passenger side on; the disadvantages of owning a car more than 15 years old becoming plainly obvious as the breaks failed to do enough to stop the large, heavy hunk of metal.

He, somehow, managed to manoeuvre slightly to the right of the van, taking the full force of impact with his side of the car; 'you're a cripple already – it's not like it can get much worse' he thought desperately as he felt his right foot slip down beside the accelerator pedal, his foot twisting as the car twisted, his ankle breaking as the vehicle broke.

He heard a muffled cry as the windows smashed with the impact of both cars colliding; it took him half a second to realise that it was he who had cried out, as the dashboard and steering wheel took this as their cue to manipulate themselves into his defenceless body; crushing his sternum and penetrating his ribs. 'Fuck...since when were dreams this realistic?' he thought as he panicked, with the smell of gas and burning rubber flooding his senses.

He vaguely heard manic, uncontrollable laughter coming from Wilson's side of the car before everything eventually turned to black...

Author's Note: I just wrote this, literally, in the last 20 minutes – wanted to throw in an update before I go to bed...hopefully it makes sense (if not, I'm sure I'll get reviews telling me that I'm babbling again!) Sorry about the little scene changes - I know some of you don't like it when I do that...personally I think it breaks up the chapter a bit. But anyway, Thanks for sticking with me so far – hopefully you don't think this fic has sucked too badly...love and thanks to all my reviewers (you really do brighten up my day - cheesy I know) Anyway, I really am babbling now, bollocks (I can't help that I'm in a good mood for a change can I?) – Enjoy! x