With the vivid memories of his nightmare still fresh on his mind, House lounged across his sofa with a bourbon and wished he could erase those memories like a videotape. He could see, smell and feel every graphic detail–the squeaky of his shoes on the tiles of the corridor; the smell of the hospital disinfectant; the cream-colored suit and glittering string of pearls Cuddy was wearing; his own growing panic; then the warm splash and wet coppery smell of blood. It was all so real. It was truly disturbing.

Something is eating away at you and we need to find out what it is.

House didn't want to think about it. But whatever his mind was trying to tell him, if it was trying to tell him anything at all, wasn't about to go away on its own. Still lurking under his bed, waiting to grab his ankle and pull him under. The only real questionwith an actual answer was whether the nightmare would appear again tonight or tomorrow.

We're a couple, remember? Your problems are my problems, and vice-versa.

When Cuddy hadn't come bursting into his office with her arms full of recurring nightmare research that afternoon, the diagnostician figured his boss had decided to wait until she was home so she could give it her full attention. He could picture her sitting at her home computer for hours on end, glued to the screen, pecking away at the keyboard, pages of printed out articles and notes in her own neat handwriting piled to one side. She'd stay up researching until her eyes began to burn and a migraine pounded her skull, then eat a handful of painkillers and prop her eyelids up with toothpicks while mining the internet for another hour.

Knock yourself out, Lisa, House thought as he swallowed his drink and refilled the glass.

It was still early evening, bedtime was a million miles away, but the thought of what might be waiting for him in those dark hours made his stomach sour. The panic, the screaming, the blood. Waking up bathed in sweat, heart pounding out of his chest. He longed for the days when the content of his dreams remained an unremembered mystery. That was a small price to pay compared to the ripe slice of hell that had played out twice now. That was pure paradise compared to this.

Is something bothering you, Greg?

Something was not necessarily bothering him, but something was almost always on his mind. His pain, his all but useless leg, his pill supply being cut off, answers to a case eluding him in one way or another, various major and minor annoyances of life. These were hanging around the maze of House's brain, one or all, at any given time.

This is my subconscious giving me a message, telling me that I'm terrified of losing you.

He was terrified of losing Cuddy, he knew and she knew it all too well. It was his worst nightmare, a nightmare now threatening to take over his every waking moment. But House didn't need some bizarre subconscious mind game to tell him something he already knew with amazing technicolor clarity.

It was a mystery all right. One that could push him over some invisible edge into a real living, breathing nightmare if he didn't solve it real damn quick.


House nibbled on a pizza crust and uneasily eyed the mountainous stack of articles and notes Cuddy had brought to his apartment. He had only glanced through it, as they decided to eat before diving into it, and the papers were filled with all the Freud and Jung psycho-babble he had slept through in high school and college. But there had to be a reason for psychiatrists and psychologists and various other headshrinkers to justify their existence, so the doctor surmised there was a nugget or two of useful information amid the dozens of pages of pure unadulterated idiocy.

The last two days had been relatively peaceful. No bad dreams, and House had more or less slept well, even if he had to sleep alone. Cuddy had caught up on her sleep as well, and had brought the results of her newly restored energy in the armload of papers sitting on his table. She was leafing through a dream dictionary when House glanced up and caught the title emblazoned in bright red font across the spine.

"What the hell is that?" he said with open disgust. "Now I've seen it all."

"It's just a book, Greg. Don't panic."

"Do you really believe that crap? Should I call Miss Cleo now?"

She set the book aside before he snatched it and ripped the pages into confetti. "No, but it might be worth a look."

"Did you bring the tarot cards, Lisa? Is it time to chant and draw the pentagram on the floor?"

"Enough, Greg. It doesn't have the answer, I know, but it might tell us something; point us in the right direction."

"Us," he smirked and finished his Pepsi.

"Are you making fun of me?" Cuddy said with a slight frown, her eyes shadowed with discontent.

"No. I just like being referred to as an 'us'. There was a time, not all that long ago, when I thought I'd never hear that again."

The frown transformed into a face splitting grin. "Well...," she stuttered, taken aback for a moment. "I'm glad to hear you say that."

"For you, I'll say anything," he said, his expression telling her that she was definitely spending the night. Then he brushed the crumbs off his lap turned his attention back to the stack of papers that seemed taller than he was. They appeared to go on forever. Cuddy obviously took this pro bono project to heart. "Okay, where do we start?"