In the office, Foreman was standing straight and tall, staring out the window.
The door blows open and Cameron speaks without introduction. "Lupus is a poor diagnosis," she informs him coldly. "What about Guillain-Barre?"
"The progression is all wrong. And it doesn't explain the blistering."
"Or the necrosis."
"Have you got a better idea?"
Cameron sighs. "No."
In a moment, one of the other fellows enters the room. "The patient had an attack!"
"What do you mean had?" Cameron demands.
"It's over. The hospital chaplain closed the blinds, and it stopped. Some kind of reaction to the sunlight."
"Photosensitivity," Foreman says. "Yet another symptom that doesn't make any sense."
"Sure it does," House says. "Come on!"
"Sure it does," another voice echoes. All turn on as Chase enters the room, wearing a priest's outfit.
"Chase is the hospital chaplain?" House says in disbelief.
"He made another mistake," the Ghost informs him. "And this time you weren't there to bail him out of it."
House smacks himself in the forehead and faces the chaplain. "What's wrong with you? I stuck my neck out for you…I stayed on your case because I knew you had the potential to do something great! To be a great doctor! And now you're peddling testaments and empty assurances. All that time and talent, wasted!"
"Too late to make him feel good about himself now, House."
"Shut up!"
A nurse runs in. "Doctor Foreman! The patient is going into cardiac arrest!"
The doctors rush to the patient's room while House stares at the white board. "Photosensitivity is consistent with cutaneous porphyria. They ruled that out because of the neurological symptoms."
In the distance, the sound of the crash cart wheeling down the hall.
"They ruled out acute porphyria because of the necrosis." He looks at the ghost. "No one ever told them that a very small percentage of porphyria cases manifest with both sets of symptoms."
House reaches for the marker, but finds his hand passes through it. He grabs twice more, in vain. He stares bullets at the Ghost, but the spirit only stares back.
"Do something!" he shouts.
"I can't," the Ghost says. "I'm dead. And so are you."
House rushes out the office to the patient's room. Everyone bustles around as Cameron shocks the patient, tears streaming down her face. Chase stands in the corner, eyes closed, praying silently.
"Charging…." the nurse says. "Clear!"
The paddles give their shocks. The lines on the monitor jump, then flatten again.
"Crank it up!" Cameron shouts.
"You're at maximum!" Foreman tells her.
"I don't care. Increase the voltage."
"No," Foreman says. "Shock him again."
Tears drip off of Cameron's chin onto the blanket. She shocks the patient again. And again. And again.
"Foreman," House says. "Time of death."
"Burton," Foreman says. "Time of death."
Burton looks at Cameron, expression filled with concern and sympathy. Cameron can only stare down at the patient, choking back sobs.
"Burton!" Foreman orders. "Time of death."
"Time of death, 4:52 P.M.," Burton says quietly.
Cameron turns away, facing the wall. Burton goes to comfort her, but she shakes him off, violently.
Minutes later, the team stands in the office.
Foreman walks in, shakes his head. He walks into the back office, House's old inner sanctum, closes the door.
House and the Ghost follow him inside. There, sitting in a corner, Cameron cries in the dark.
"There wasn't anything you could do."
Cameron looks up at him. Her makeup is smeared and her face is twisted by despair. Even House is taken aback, having never seen such an expression on her face.
"No. There's nothing I could do. Nothing you could do. Nothing those idiots could do." She points at the office.
"Don't blame them."
"Who should I blame then?"
Foreman looks away, not knowing how to answer the question. Cameron buries her face in her hands. "Blame….us," she croaks.
"We had three days."
"Three days! Three days should have been…" She trailed off. In a moment, the only noise in the room was that of her quiet sobs.
Foreman stands, staring at the opposite wall for a long time. Cautiously, House limps to his side and looks at his face.
His face is frozen in a thoughtful frown. Halfway down his cheek, a single tear creeps like a crippled animal toward the floor. "If only he was still here ," he whispers.
"I don't get it." House turns to the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. "I'm already dead. Who could have affected them all this much?"
The spirit raises an arm and points back to the patient's room.
Without hesitation, House walks straight through the walls, taking the shortest route to the patient's room.
He bursts through the wall, approaches the bed, and tears back the sheet.
And stumbles backward, dropping his cane.
"No. No. It can't be."
Lying in bed, face colored with porphyric bruises, is James Wilson.
"No." House blinks, trying to hold back tears. "No. I don't believe it."
The Ghost is at his side.
House turns on the ghost, his face contorting from sadness to rage. "You! This is your fault!" he snarls. He walks toward the spirit, who takes a couple steps back.
"You wanted this to happen! You'll never rest until you've made me suffer in every way imaginable! This was all YOUR IDEA!"
Somehow, his cane in his hand. With all his might, Greg House jabs his cane into the ghost's face. Somehow, it knocks the intangible being's cowl back.
To reveal a skull, naked of flesh.
Now the tears are streaming down. Now, House is not sure if the skull belongs to the shooter. Or to Wilson. Or even himself .
He backs away, eyes wide with horror, but still dripping.
"You'd love to blame me," the Ghost says in the shooter's voice. "Or anyone else. But, in reality, there's only one person who caused all this suffering." Slowly, he raises his arm again . . .
And House loses all control. Without fear for himself, for his leg, or for his soul, he attacks the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come like a crazed animal, wrestling the skeletal being to the ground, punching and tearing at it with all his might.
The last thing he sees is the black fabric of the Ghost's cloak.
Blackness.