CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT – Dreams of Truths or Lies?

'Ok, House, hang in there. Thirty more minutes. You should come around a little bit in thirty minutes. That's the worst part. You can do it.'

It has only been about twenty minutes since Cuddy inserted the Ketalar into House's I.V. Things are going calmer than she anticipated but still, it is harder to deal with than she thought it would be. She is on pins and needles waiting for anything to happen.

And she thinks everything is fine – until House silently reaches over and pulls at the B.P. cuff, scratches at it and curses that it is hurting him and his fingers are falling off. The Velcro easily separates as Cuddy fights to keep it on him. He keeps calling Cuddy Stacy and yells at her about how much she hurt him for leaving and how much he hates her and wishes she'd die. What hurts Cuddy more is when he blames her solely for the loss of his leg.

"YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE LET HER! IT WAS MY LEG! I WANT IT BACK! I WANT MY LEG BACK! YOURS! GIVE ME YOURS!" he screams.

Immediately upon Cuddy's order, Hildie and Alice are at his bedside trying to hold his arms down while Cuddy administers Zyprexa to quell the minor delusion. Only after his body becomes rigid and he sinks into the bed does Cuddy somewhat relax. She takes a deep breath and reapplies the blood pressure cuff onto his arm while the two nurses check his blood pressure, heart rhythm and pulse.

"Dr. Cuddy, his B.P. shot up to 185over102 but that could just have been because of the hallucination," Hildie says.

"His pulse was up to 142 but it's down to 111 now but still too high," Alice adds.

Cuddy nods her head as she covers House lovingly with the bed sheet. "Ok, we'll check his stats again in ten minutes. I'll have to run down to the Pharmacy for Procardia just in case we need it."

As Cuddy walks down the hall to the elevator she can't help but think what House said to her, even the look in his eyes was something she'd NEVER seen – even when he was detoxing or in his normal everyday 'pain in the arse' moods. She understands it's the Ketalar but didn't think she'd ever hear those words come from him.

'Can't let it get too personal. He didn't mean it. I know he didn't.'

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The authoritative, urgent voices have stopped now and he's grateful for it. The voices, while soft, were as deafening as a speaker from a band's amplifier and he was standing only two feet away from it. It was a strange sound to him yet he found it oddly soothing – the voices bounced off the walls like in a massive cave and came back to him with every syllable. They reverberated in his ears and he made a game out of trying to determine what the note was as if it were a symphony playing.

What had set him off just a moment ago was the tightness on his right arm that kept getting tight then was released, but it is becoming more and more annoying to him with every passing minute. His body no longer feels as if it is attached to him: his legs feel somewhat numb and weightless yet there's also the sensation of a million ants crawling on them but yet he doesn't find it unbearable, just mildly bothersome; his arms feel as if they are floating on a cloud beside him but the rest of his body is going to fall through at any moment; his head feels as if someone is holding it and moving it in all different directions but he has no control over it any more.

He has no control over anything anymore; that's what is really making him angry. He wants his body to wake up, to feel normal again, to feel like it had more than five years earlier when he wasn't in such horrific pain.

But something wasn't right. Something was off. What was it? Where was he? Why did everything sound and feel so funny?

"House," a soft, calm voice says in his ear, "House, it's Stacy. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

He tries to open his eyes but he can't. They feel as if they are swollen shut, stapled. 'Yeah, stapled.' He can feel the ants from his legs crawling over the staples under his eyelids, over his eyelashes, on his forehead and scurrying about his hair over his ears. It tickles. It's annoying. 'Stop, make it stop.'

"Offff…get 'em off me…" House mutters as he tries to brush off the imaginary ants. "Stacy, get rid of 'em! They tickle…they…hurt. They're…they're BITING ME!"

"House! Stop it!" Cuddy cries as she runs back into the room to House's bedside.

"Stacy, they're all over me…get 'em off…OFF ME!" he continues to cry out.

Hildie and Alice have their hands on both of his wrists holding them down because the last thing they want to happen is the I.V. tube get pulled from his vein in the back of his left arm.

"Hildie, keep his arms down and Alice, hold onto his left leg," Cuddy orders before she grabs the Ketalar vial and another syringe to administer a higher dose.

She turns the vial upside down while she pulls back on the syringe but then she suddenly grunts and relapses on her right side. Somehow House managed to bring his left leg up and with enough force kick her. Cuddy groans softly but barks, "Alice, tighter gri…DAMNIT!" Cuddy curses as House's foot once again finds her waist, right above her ribs and succeeds in giving her a solid kick.

"Hildie, take this," Cuddy says angrily and impatiently as she gives Alice a dirty look and hands Hildie the syringe. "Give it to him."

Cuddy then grabs onto House's left leg and puts as much weight on it as she can. She watches Hildie as she inserts the Ketalar into the tube and soon enough, again and hopefully longer this time, House calms down and grows silent.

Alice recoils from the bed and she turns to leave the room.

"Alice, I'm sorry I snapped. It wasn't your fault. I need you here," Cuddy tells her as she tries to catch her breath and rubs her side. Alice nods her head and heads back to the cabinets over the sink.

Cuddy turns back to House and thinks, 'They're getting worse. You shouldn't have so many hallucinations so soon. Don't get all stupid on me, House. This is a piece of cake for you. You can do this.'

Suddenly a beep resonates throughout the room and Cuddy's heart jumps in her chest.

"His BP is 198over210…he'll stroke out if…" Hildie starts to say but then the heart monitor beside the bed gives the infamous, threatening and terrifying sound of a flat line.

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Cameron slowly becomes aware of where she is and for some reason feels quite content. She hears the birds chirp outside her window and opens her eyes to see the sun shining softly through her window. She smiles. She turns her head away from the window and sees House staring back at her.

"'Mornin', love," he says with a familiar voice but not of House's. House's deeply sexy, throaty voice has a very thick Aussie accent. "What's wrong?"

"House, why do you sound like Cha…wait, what the HELL are you doing in my bed?" Cameron demands as she sits up in bed and continues to stare at the strange House-Chase person.

HouCha sits up next to her and tries to put his arm around her but she pushes him away and jumpsd out of bed.

"If you're House then…then, where's Chase? No, you sound like Chase but look like House…what's going on!"

"Oh, Allison, it's what you wanted. I am Chase on the inside but House on the outside."

She frowns at him and shakes her head back and forth in denial at what she sees in front of her. HouCha stands and approaches her to talk some sense into her but she fights him off, pounding her fists into his chest. Her head continues to rock back and forth until she feels her body shake violently and Chase's voice commands her to 'snap out of it.'

"It's not me that needs to snap out of…"

"Allison, ALLISON! Look at me!" Chase cries as he continues to shake her until she opens her eyes and wakes up from the nightmare she's in.

"no…no…NO!" she wails as her arms flail in front of her as if she is fighting something off, occasionally succeeding in a few punches to his chest.

"Shhhhh…shhh, Allison. You're okay," Chase tells her reassuringly.

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