Cuddy glanced over as she stirred the coffee into the cups. The doctor was seated at her table, resting his head against his steepled arms. Every light in the front was on; in the living room, the kitchen, the dining room. In the middle of the night the lights seemed too bright and harsh, casting sharp jagged shadows over every surface.
The last few days had been rather routine and uneventful, with the exception of House losing what fleeting patience he ever possessed with a bloated soccer mom, telling her she was too stupid to spawn. Up until twenty minutes ago, Cuddy had been able to keep House and his barbed tongue more or less in check. Up until twenty minutes ago, the nightmare that had scared him so badly had been pretty much forgotten. House wouldn't talk about it and Cuddy let it drop, figuring it was just a one-time event. Everyone has a nightmare sooner or later. It's just a fact of life. Then twenty minutes ago the diagnostician woke up screaming "Stop! Lisa...No!" in her bed, and came within a half-inch of breaking her nose with an errant flailing fist. A dark triangle of sweat stained the front of his grey tee shirt, beads of it glistened along his hairline.
She poured a generous amount of bourbon into the cups and brought them to the table. They sipped quietly at their drinks, waiting for the warmth of the coffee and tinge of the alcohol to hit their bloodstreams and settle the nerves that were frayed to the very last thread. She stole another glance and noted how the ghostly paleness of his skin extended all the way to his fingertips. It took a while but Cuddy finally found the word to describe how House looked–haunted.
He tried to pretend that he was thinking of nothing, which was futile. His brow was knitted in concentration and his eyes twitched from side to side, trying to follow the something that had invaded his mind and his sleep, trying to make sense of the senseless. His hands were shaking.
"We're in a corridor," House began suddenly in a flat voice, setting the cup down before he dropped it. Not looking at her. He hadn't looked at her since he sat at the table. "You and me. I'm at one end and you're at the other."
"At the hospital?" she asked cautiously, hoping he wouldn't lash out at her interruption.
He didn't. "It's the hospital, but it's not the hospital. The corridor seems to go on for miles. Just miles and miles of this thing, with hundreds of identical rooms crammed full of thousands of identical patients. They're all yelling at me because I'm the only who can help them. I ignore them because I'm trying to get you to stop and turn around. I'm screaming at you to stop."
"Why?" the Dean of Medicine asked, wanting to hear the answer even though she knew she was going to regret it.
"I'm screaming at the top of my lungs at you," he continued in the same flat voice as if he hadn't heard her. Trying be detached, wanting to be detached, to view it all at a safe distance where it couldn't touch him or hurt him. "But you don't hear me or don't listen. You just look at me and turn and walk away. I'm trying to run, like I can run with this fucking leg. The fucking patients won't let up, they keep yelling at me to treat them, to cure them. I keep screaming 'Stop Lisa, please... goddammit, just stop!' You won't stop, just keep walking, heading to an exit. I can't let you go out that exit or else something terrible is going to happen."
He paused to take another sip of his drink. As he did, he turned towards her a bit and the light hit his eyes. Cuddy's breath caught in her throat when she saw how lifeless his eyes were. Like his batteries had run out. He was completely drained, physically and emotionally.
"I'm still trying to catch you. No matter how fast I go, I can't catch up. You ever try to run with a cane? It doesn't work." House let out strangled emotionless laugh. "You go out the exit and I follow. It's like...goddammit...I'm screaming at you. Why don't you hear me? Why won't you listen to me? Then you walk out into the road and this car comes out of nowhere and...and I can feel it when your blood splatters all over me."
As quickly as he started talking, he stopped as if a button had been pushed. Cuddy could only sit there, unable to get her voice to work. Not that she had anything to say. The rest of her coffee was forgotten, sitting there as still as the rest of the room. House was just as still, like a statue, unmoving. A faint buzz from the lights was the only noise to be heard.
Before she could find some words, House stood up and mumbled, "I don't wanna talk anymore," and limped back to the bedroom without looking back. He hadn't looked at her the entire time he was out there. Eventually, she followed without bothering to rinse out the cups or turn out the lights.
The bedroom door was half closed. She carefully pushed it open, letting enough light into the room to make out the grey in House's tee shirt and pink flowers of the bedspread. The doctor was on his side, facing away. She slid back into the coolness of the sheets and slid up to her lover, resting a hand on his shoulder. His face wasn't visible, but she knew his eyes were wide open. He didn't push her away, but he didn't acknowledge her presence either.
"It's just a nightmare," she said quietly, wanting to give him some alleviation from his horrible dreams, knowing her words would bounce off him like a rubber ball, but she was determined to make him hear them anyway. "Just a nightmare, that's all. It's not going to hurt you."
He didn't want to talk, and wouldn't, just let wanted to feel her. He lay there in her arms for the rest of the night as they listened to each other breath. Neither of them slept.
