Disclaimer: The last chapter was totally too short. Sorry it took so long.

Rivalry in Reflections

"House?" Loud knocking. "House!"

House didn't bother moving from where he sat. He heard the noises of keys and viewed the door from where he sat, watching as the scene blurred over.

---

"So tell me about the people closest to you." The psychiatrist sat on the chair, with his glasses perched on his noise. He had a leg crossed over the other, and looked at House with an air of something all too similar.

A puzzle. That's what he was. A puzzle to diagnose. It's been about a two weeks since he'd been in here. Amber sat, perched on a table to the right of him in the room. The table was filled with newspapers and a telephone.

"Tell him about Wilson." Her voice chided, a frown on her face. For some reason, as of lately, she'd been looking annoyed, almost frustrated.

He looked back to the psychiatrist who regarded the flicker of his eyes to the corner as something more than just a flicker.

"What is she saying?" He flipped past the pages of the past couple days of House's short abrupt responses. "Amber…What's she saying?"

"Oou, he knows my name House. He must feel smart."

Sighing, House let his eyes linger on Amber's grey ones. Now they reflected concern.

"The more you talk, the faster you get out of here." She hopped off the table and started towards him. "It's a psyche issue, because you're off the Vicodin. Your mind is trying to tell you something. I'm here until that's resolved." She crossed her arms and looked at him defiantly.

"Alright, fine, we don't have to talk about her. Tell me, Greg, how was detoxing last week? Must've been very painful. You're probably still experiencing the aftermath."

"He obviously doesn't know what you can deal with." She rolled her eyes at him, before turning her eyes back to House's blue ones. "Say something."

"Does your leg hurt?" More sounds of shuffling pages.

"Tell him your leg hurts. He'll give you something for it. Say something, House."

"Wilson's the closest person to me. He always lets me walk all over him, but he's there when I need him. All the time. I killed his girlfriend."

House never once took his eyes off of Amber, and as these words left his lips, she froze, standing stock still.

The psychiatrist shuffled some papers, and House finally broke his gaze, and looked at the man who was fumbling to write all of this down, before looking up at House with wide eyes. Then they narrowed. Then they reflected something like recognition.

"He was always there whenever you needed him? Even after you killed his girlfriend?"

"That's odd. He didn't ask how you killed me. That means he thinks you're out of your mind." Amber said, tilting her head to a side and putting a hand on her hip.

House thought about the question.

"Yeah. Well, he left for a bit."

"Of course, wouldn't anyone? How did you kill his girlfriend?"

"You've answered enough questions for today. Your head hurts again, doesn't it? Tell him to go away." Amber walked up to the psychiatrist and tried to push him away, only succeeding to fall through him. She landed on the floor.

House watched her get back up again. Then she stopped and walked up back to himself, something like anxiety in her grey eyes.

"Gregory?" The psychiatrist dropped the clipboard to the ground.

"House?" Amber mumbled, her hand coming up to his face. He didn't feel her. Then again, why would he? The closest person to him was a figment of his imagination, momentarily.

She blurred, and so did the rest of the room. The last thing he saw was the world tilted to the side as he fell from the chair and onto the ground, blacking out.

---

The door opened, in House's blurred vision. Wilson stumbled in, breathing heavily. House blinked, trying to clear up the room. He succeeded, marginally.

"House! What the hell-House?" Wilson's eyes widened at the other man's unfocused eyes. He started towards him, slowly, and the smell of alcohol reached his nose. "You're drunk." He stopped in his tracks.

"Not momentarily." Came House's reply, almost defensive. A shadow of his old self, if even a shadow.

House was regarding Wilson almost cautiously.

"House?" He found himself whisper, and took another step forward.

---

They no longer put in to sit in a chair during their sessions, so he lay in a single bed. The shrink sat beside him, assessing him with curiosity. Amber sat on her bed.

"Tell me more about Wilson."

"House, I'm somewhat…translucent. Does that mean I'm leaving?" Amber asked, and indeed, she certainly was see through. "Ask the shrink, maybe he'll tell us."

"He'd come over at all the right times, and I could go to his house whenever I wanted to. Even when he was married, and going from one marriage to another, he still made plenty of time for me, whenever he could. He's a really interesting person."

The shrink looked at House calculatingly.

"He doubts you." Amber mumbled, getting up off the bed and standing beside House. House looked down at his leg.

---

House started to pull himself up, using the couch arm for support. Wilson started to walk towards him again but House put out a hand, almost defensively. Once he was on his feet, he looked up at Wilson, who looked at him with something unreadable in his eyes.

"Did Lisa send you?"

"Ye-No! She gave me a day off to get you, but I'm not only here because of that."

Is he really here?

"I'll be in work tomorrow." House found himself responding, cautiously. He ignored the second part of Wilson's sentence. He stood there.

"House!" Before House could blink, Wilson had grabbed him by the shoulders. As Wilson started to shake him, something snapped in his brain.

The next couple seconds consisted of panic and confusion within House's mind.

When he opened his eyes, Wilson was standing over him with wide eyes, and he was back on the ground. His hands were on the floor behind him; apparently he'd fallen back on them. He was breathing heavily, his heart pounding in his ears.

Smooth.

---

"Let's talk about your childhood, Greg."

"I look really creepy. You can totally see through me. I'm not even like slightly opaque." Amber mused, walking from one end of the room to the other.

"I had a loving mother who tended to my every need and a father who was strict when necessary." House automatically found himself replying. The shrink looked at him.

"Now, how about the truth?"

Amber stopped pacing. She looked at the shrink, who had a smug look on his face. "He's smarter than he looks." She looked back at House. "Tell him about the sick fuck you had as a father." She said, lightly.

"That is the truth." House dryly replied. Amber tilted her head.

"Right. You're only here to get rid of me, not to fix the ghosts that haunt you from your past."

"Did you make friends easily?"

Amber laughed, her voice ringing through the air. Then her demeanor changed as she imitated a man. "Friends only hold you back from your true potential." She stated harshly, and then laughed as she took a step towards House, who never once took his eyes off of her. She put herself in his lap, straddling him. "All…you…need…is…" She put her nose to his, eyes narrowed and a playful smirk on her face, "Your mother and…Me."

Gregory House snapped, and frantically attempted to push Amber off him. She only raised her eyebrows and in a flurry of panic that took place in his mind, somehow managed to push himself off the mattress and end up on the floor. Images that were once repressed overwhelmed his mind and he found himself kicking, mentally numb to the searing pain taking over his right leg.

He was blind to the nurses that rushed in as the shrink tried to calm him down, the only thing flashing before his eyes images of the past.

He felt a slight pinch, and the images dissolved into grey eyes that belonged to Amber. And then she was gone.

As soon as he saw he disappeared, he welcomed the nothingness of being unconscious, as one last thought, her words, ran through his mind - "Finally." She breathed.

And he blacked out.

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