Okay, I guess you like the idea. I wasn't sure if people would be interested in reading an alternative finale, since so many postep extensions are around and I'm ignoring the scene all of those people obviously loved. Anyhow, here's chapter 2. Again, this story isn't terribly long, but it's a nice little roller coaster of its own.

(H/C)

House was stunned. No, not just stunned, horrified. He stared at the page of lab results on the desk. "But I didn't . . ." he protested, but his voice was soft, weak.

Cuddy, who had been prepared and all rehearsed up to confront defiance, denial, or evasion, was instead swept straight back to the scene in her office a year ago. For the first time since she had received the results, concern overpowered annoyance and disappointment. "House?" She had to repeat his name before he looked up. "You really don't think you took any?"

He shook his head and looked back down at the page. "I don't . . . remember it." Suddenly, almost frantically, he whipped out his bottle of ibuprofen, opening it, spilling them out across the desk. Cuddy came up beside him, and they both picked up a few sample pills, scrutinizing them.

"This is ibuprofen," Cuddy confirmed. She looked at him, wanting to believe and yet afraid to. She knew, as he did, that a year ago, in his hallucination, he had thought he was off Vicodin, too, and he had been scarfing them down like breath mints the whole day while he saw something else. Believing his denial meant wondering if his brilliant mind once again had fractured. She had barely survived it once, and she knew how devastated he had been that day. She wasn't sure she could take round two, and she was almost positive he couldn't.

Unless . . . "Maybe there's another explanation. Maybe it's a lab error. Why don't we run a blood test?"

He nodded. He still looked stunned. "I'll go down and get a blood draw kit," she stated, realizing he wouldn't want anybody else doing this. She already knew he was afraid he might be breaking down again. No one else needed to be brought into the loop yet. He was clinging to the torn shreds of privacy.

"First," he asked, his voice still soft and totally unlike his usual, "could you . . . search me? Last year, I thought . . ." He trailed off, but his mind completed it. He had thought he had her lipstick, when he actually had his Vicodin all along. Had anybody been asked last year during that day, they would have confirmed the Vicodin, but nobody had realized his delusion.

Cuddy took a deep breath. "Okay," she said, trying to keep her voice even for his sake when her own fears were screaming at her. She had fully expected a simple relapse when she'd gotten the test. It had never occurred to her to seek another answer, whether mental break or lab error. And why hadn't it, she challenged herself, feeling a stab of guilt. They'd had their differences this year, but was she so out of the loop that even concern for him as an employee was automatically overriden by pure assumption of failure?

He was waiting, and she stepped forward, awkwardly patting him down almost as if he were a suspect under arrest. He had his wallet, his keys, his ibuprofen. Nothing remotely resembling Vicodin in his pockets. She moved on to his backpack, opening it while he watched numbly. Professional magazines. One magazine of another sort entirely. His Gameboy.

Satisfied, she shook her head. "I don't see anything at all that looks like Vicodin."

He was relieved, but he still wanted more proof. "Check the desk drawers." She did so, finding his liquor bottle, giving him a sharp glance, but again, no Vicodin came to light. She took a final walk around the office, pulling out a book here and there, looking behind and in his artifacts. Absolutely nothing. She took a deep breath and faced him.

"Maybe it's a lab error, House. Let's try that before we jump to conclusions. And maybe even if it confirms there's another reason besides delusions." She looked at the bottle on his desk. "How much have you been drinking lately?" She remembered his confession of winding up in the wrong bed.

His eyes fell. "More than I should," he admitted. "I was drunk last night."

"Do you think you could take Vicodin while drunk and not know it?"

He sighed. "Maybe. But I'd have to find some. The whole apartment's been cleaned out. Not sure how much effort I could put into finding it if I was too drunk to remember taking it." There was, of course, his super secret stash behind the mirror, his last resort, but he knew that was untouched. Impossible to get to without destroying a piece of the wall, even sober. Probably completely impossible all around if he was drunk.

Cuddy came back to face him. "It could be lab error. Let's rule that out."

He shook himself, as if trying to dislodge his fears. "Okay. I swear, I didn't deliberately . . . with everything, I've STILL managed to avoid that."

This wasn't the time to explore his statement of everything and defend herself. He seemed to need reassurance right now, which House never did, or almost never, until that day in her office last year. "Come on," she said. "Let's go down to the lab and get some blood. I'll have the tests rerun. Do you want to do them? I could watch to verify it."

He shook his head. "Get a tech. Somebody who doesn't know me. Put it under a pseudonym; some of my stuff is under Luke N Laura. No indication that this test is special, just in case somebody with a grudge against me interfered with it. If this one is positive, we can run one personally, but maybe if they don't know it's me, it will be different."

She had to concede that third possibility. House certainly had made enough enemies, including ones in the hospital with the knowledge required. "All right. I'll get it run by someone who's never dealt with you, although it might have to wait until first thing in the morning. There's just a skeleton evening crew down there, and I think all of them know you fairly well."

He looked at his watch, surprised how late it was. "All right. Don't get a draw kit from the lab; they'd question that. You don't actively practice medicine anymore. Get one from a hall cart somewhere and then come back up. Then have somebody too dumb to be curious, some job robot, take the vial to the lab and order tests for first thing in the morning. Nothing anyone in the lab would see to connect it with either of us."

She nodded, admiring his mental dexterity, even under stress. "I'll go get a kit. Are you okay? I'm not sure I should leave you alone at the moment."

"Too late," he murmured, almost inaudibly.

"What?" She thought she'd heard but didn't want to.

"Nothing. I'm fine." He picked up the Gameboy. "I'll be up here without Vicodin waiting for you."

She studied him, then accepted it. "Back in a few minutes." She returned as quickly as she could, finding him playing Gameboy, as he'd said. She drew the blood, a bit awkwardly as she was out of practice, but he didn't comment on the initial failed efforts. Finally, she left him again to deliver the blood to the least curious aide she could think of, then came back.

House was looking steadier, she thought. The search of the office had helped him, and it was after that that he'd thought up the quite-good third party theory. Of course, he still could have taken it somehow while drunk. Or he could have just relapsed and be playing her like his baby grand piano, but she didn't think so. Even House wasn't that good an actor. He hadn't been faking the horror at first.

"All done?" he asked, looking away from the screen and ignoring the electronic protest as his car on the game died.

"Mission accomplished," she said with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. It suddenly occurred to her that this was the most extended, sincere interaction the two of them had had since he had gotten into the car with her on the day of the insurance battle. She did miss his friendship, the old camaraderie, but he had chosen a few weeks ago, after all. He couldn't accept friendship from her any longer. Maybe she should hand this whole situation over to someone whom he would accept. "House, do you want me to call Wilson?"

That drew the most Housian response since she'd confronted him with the test. "Hell, no. Wouldn't want to interfere with his evening with Sam. He'd probably pay somebody else to come, anyway."

She flinched but didn't pursue it. "Are you sure you'll be okay tonight?" She no longer thought herself that he was having an acute break, not like last year. He'd never settled down during the middle of that as he had after she'd searched him. He looked almost like himself now, mind galloping along as usual, but no longer in shock.

He nodded. "Go on home. Tell Lucas hi."

She studied him carefully. "You can come home with me if you want."

Now that would be the height of awkwardness, being the third wheel in the new home with Lucas and Cuddy, not to mention Rachel, still present though probably asleep. "No. Lucas knows too much . . ." He trailed off again, and she flinched. Yes, Lucas already knew more than he should about House's delusions. She still felt guilty about that. Of course House wouldn't want to face him, to face the questions and be unable to deny that something might be going on. "Go on. I'll go home and keep myself company with my piano." No way would he accept her, and certainly not Lucas, as babysitter. She had made her choice, just as he had.

She studied him, gauging his sincerity and his stability, and then nodded reluctantly. "All right, but please don't get drunk tonight."

"I won't," he promised, perfectly sincerely. If alcohol had led him to drunk Vicodin-gulping, it was time to completely blow up the trestle and derail that train. "Although it's probably somebody here out to sabotage me."

"Or just a lab error," she pointed out. She studied him, still a bit reluctant to leave, and at that moment, her phone rang. "Oh, hi. Sorry, I got tied up at the hospital. Yes, I'm about to leave now. How's Rachel? Okay, see you soon. I love you, too." She snapped the cell phone off, and when she looked back at House, every wall he had was up. No more did this remind her of an encounter, albeit a stressed one, between friends. "Are you sure . . ."

"Go on home," he said coldly. "I'm fine."

She knew she wouldn't get anything more besides a stone wall tonight. "Call me if you need me," she offered. She knew he wouldn't. With one more slightly worried glance, she left her hospital's best asset in his office and headed home, worried more about this situation than just professionally.

Left behind in the office, House stared at the ibuprofen, then at the liquor bottle, and then he got up and walked into the conference room to pour the booze down the sink. Enough. He had told Cuddy the truth; he wouldn't drink any alcohol tonight. The fear of going back on the Vicodin, going back to the hallucinations and delusions, was too strong. His last random drug test two weeks ago had been clean, and the tests were run regularly; if he'd had a drunk relapse, it was fairly recent and not large enough that he'd noticed a functional difference, even with his tolerance for Vicodin presumably no longer up. If he'd had any somehow, he didn't think he'd had much. Hopefully he was okay.

But he still favored the lab error theory or, even better, sabotage. He could fight a person and defeat a person better than a computer. He knew he had enemies. Let them try; he wasn't going back to Mayfield or to Nolan with his tail between his legs without putting up one hell of a fight.

With a determined limp, he picked up his backpack and exited the office, heading home to his Yamaha, the one friend of his life who steadfastly refused to judge him or move on to better choices.