"I'm so tired of myself. If for a few hours I could just lose myself in some Thelonius Monk I would be feeling ten times better." House said to himself within the confines of his small room at Mayfield.
"Just my ipod for a few hours..."
"Yeah, like that's gonna solve this problem." The blonde snarked from the other side of the bed.
"Why can't you just leave me alone?"
"The better question is why can't you leave you alone?" She said as she rested a hand under her chin and stared back at him.
He sighed deeply and began to look up at the ceiling.
"You're a reflection of my subconscious. You are me, thus what am I trying to understand?" He said with a frown.
"How do I make you feel?" She asked as she started to stroke his hair.
"Pissed."
"And? There's more to it."
"You taunt me. Which means I taunt me. Which means I'm punishing myself. Why am I punishing myself?"
She stilled her hand in his hair and looked toward the window. He stared at her.
"Why are you looking out the window?"
She looked back down at him and smiled sadly.
"Go and see."
House stood up from his bed and limped to the small circular window. He opened the curtain and caught the image of Amber and him trying to hold onto each other as the bus crashed. The debris was flying everywere, and he tried to keep her hand in his, but the grip was broken.
House quickly closed the curtain.
"Why?" He asked the blonde who was now standing in front of him.
"You didn't hold on. You didn't save me. You couldn't keep me around the way you have the hundreds of others who deserved less..."
"But I found the reason behind your illness. I did everything to try and save you. I just couldn't..."
"...Save me." She said as blood started leaking from her abdomen.
House pulled a blanket from his bed and wrapped it around her.
"Stay with me." He said softly.
She touched his beard.
"You don't need me to anymore. I forgive you." She said as she disappeared before his eyes.
He looked down to find the blanket wrapped around his sore thigh. He stood up and looked out the window once more. He only saw the blackness of night reaching over the sky.
"She forgave me...I have forgiven myself."
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"I really hated him for what he said about you." Cuddy said to her sleeping daughter. She gently caressed her daughter's smooth curls as she slept.
"He's said so many bad things to me in the past, but the minute he disrespected you I was beyond regular anger. Here, I thought, I was born without the Mommy gene, and it only took one comment for me to feel like squashing him into a thousand pieces..." Cuddy turned away from the crib and walked toward the window. There was a crescent moon in the sky.
"Of course, once I found out he had been hallucinating everything fell into place...He thought I had instantly forgave him...which I hate to admit...I probably would have. Whenever he opens up to me, which is rare, I'm always willing to give him another chance...If he had just told me instead of retreating into his misanthropy and using you as his shield I could have helped him that night. I can't get over the way he looked at me in my office. I've seen him break several times in the twenty years that we've been friends, but I've never seen him utterly devastated..."
Cuddy sat on the nearby sofa and turned on the night light.
"I miss him, Rach. I want to tell him so many things but I can't. I want him to know that I'll never choose between the two of you because there's no choice to be made...You two both are my heart...whole and unconditional..."
Cuddy rubbed her tired eyes and brought a blanket up around her and lay on the sofa. She could hear Rachael's soft murmurs.
"One day we'll all be together." Cuddy said before closing her eyes.