A/N: I must be crazy to start another fic, but trust me, I'm containing myself. I actually have two or three other fics in the midst of being started (both great ideas that I absolutely love) that I'm not posting untill they get a little further into the meaty stuff. I'm proud of this idea, and I hope that it turns out the way I envision it.
This should be a mixture of the genres supernatural and romance. If you know me, its hard for me to mix those two, but I think this fic will shatter that barrier and they will blend perfectly.
I can't promise speedy updates, but maybe the more stories I have, the more options I have, and well, I won't ever get writer's block that way.
Please read, review, and enjoy like always! Let me know what you think, and I'll try my best to continue updating all my stories!
Summary: Cuddy falls into an inexplicable coma after a psychic visits the hospital. As House tries to save her from the dangers of a permanent slumber, he ventures deep into the caged areas of Cuddy's mind she never intended to reveal. Can House save her before it's too late, or will he perish with her, locked inside the relentless walls of the very mind that is holding her hostage? [Huddy]
Disclaimer: insert unnecessary generic disclaimer here (set in effect for all future chapters): I do not own any rights to House, M.D. or its characters. They are the property of David Shore and FOX. I am making absolutely no money or profit from this whatsoever.
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Prologue
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The human mind is a powerful thing. It holds and protects our memories and past experiences like a protective mother to her child. It cradles everything we hold dear. Everything we look back to for comfort and support when we feel there is nothing positive in this world and everything we hate and despise in intense moments of passion and anger. It contains everything we dread. Everything we try to hide.
We attempt to protect ourselves from the devastating truths of our lives, but most of all, we fabricate a protective barrier around ourselves to shield our secrets from others.
There is no one person who speaks everything on their mind; no one person who openly broadcasts their darkest secrets or even most innocently embarrassing thoughts to the world. In this way we are most protected in our minds. But if that vault was ever to be penetrated and our mind became victim to the scrutiny of the world we become more vulnerable than ever imaginable.
This vault to our thoughts and feelings; memories and experiences; motivations and desires, is not as safe as we wish. The subconscious mind betrays us every day, every moment, every time we are given a chance to act or react. Not to be confused with habits, our subconscious forces us to act without our knowledge or consent.
Given certain circumstances one will react in a certain manner reminiscent of what has been molded into their subconscious mind. Most actions occur without conscious thought, nearly stripping us of our free will altogether. If our subconscious controls our actions as skillfully as that we do not notice it, secrets become that much harder to conceal.
The most powerful display of our subconscious mind resides within our dreams. Within our nightmares. It reveals our desires and fears in a sequence of codes and masked meanings. It stretches the barrier of reality until its breaking point. In a nightmare you might find yourself falling from a cliff. This is obviously not realistic, so why do we constantly awaken the precise moment before we hit ground?
What if we were unable to awaken and return from the constraints of our mind? What would it mean for our fate if we were trapped in a nightmare? What would happen if we couldn't wake up? If we allowed ourselves to finally hit the ground?
Your mind is the only entity to completely understand you even more so than yourself. It belongs to you and you alone, but it is a bitter-sweet placement of power; merely a false sense of superiority for the verity that you can not contain or control it. Quite oppositely, it controls the reigns that have been strung around you from birth to death—reigns that act as ropes to keep you from your own freedom comprised of the very experiences and memories you try so desperately to ignore; to hide.
Your only hope is to continue to put on an act; no one will notice your innocent façade amongst the sea of imposters protecting themselves in the same approach.
The only fact we can take solace in is our blatant inability to enter the mind of another human being.
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Chapter One
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"Two Jews walk into a hospital." House started as Cuddy and Wilson approached him at the nurses' station near the clinic.
He received two looks throwing brown and blue daggers at him, but continued despite his two friends' disapproval.
"They both become doctors and one of them decides to run the facility." Cuddy and Wilson simultaneously rolled their eyes. "Hey, it's only funny because it's true." House narrowed his eyes at the pair. "Why are you both here anyway?"
"I was just on my way to see a patient." Wilson explained and continued walking in his predetermined path to one of the empty exam rooms, leaving only Cuddy with House.
Cuddy extended a chart to House, who looked at it, but refused to accept it. "A psychic walks into a clinic," said Cuddy, turning House's joke on him.
House finished her statement for her, "and then leaves because he already knows what's wrong with him."
"She," corrected Cuddy, "is complaining of an inability to stay awake."
House's facial expression remained neutral, "drowsiness? Just tell her to get some sleep; she'll be better by sunrise," he offered offhandedly.
House reached behind himself and pulled a red lollipop from a bowl on the nurses' station counter. He turned back toward Cuddy and narrowed his eyes suspiciously as he took in her appearance. "You have bags under your eyes," he stated pointedly, "how long were you up last night?" he inquired, using the newly acquired lollipop to point at her accusingly.
"Apparently she doesn't want to sleep," explained Cuddy, ignoring House's scrutiny, "she can't stay awake but she claims that she can't fall asleep either."
House unraveled the wax paper from the lollipop and threw the wrapper on the floor, earning himself a glare from Cuddy.
"Well then admit her to the hospital, put her in a room and make her watch CSPAN for a few minutes." Cuddy rolled her eyes once again at House. "And if that doesn't work, then why don't you go in and start talking to her; I'm getting weaker by the second."
Cuddy's patience began to wear thin, so she got to the point. "She can't fall asleep because if she does she is convinced that she'll never wake up."
Cuddy knew she had him hooked as his eyes narrowed. Cuddy extended the file to him again and he reluctantly took it with his free hand.
"She's waiting in exam room two." Cuddy turned to leave, hiding a victorious smirk, and took the red lollipop from House's hand as she left, gathering a sigh from House as she popped the sucker into her mouth and walked away.
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"Alright, so you're a psycho." House entered the room and closed the door behind him, taking a seat on a stool as he flipped through the patient's file without looking up at the actual patient.
"Psychic," the patient corrected, surprisingly not too offended at the comment.
House looked up from the file to meet eyes with the self-acclaimed psychic. "I know," said House shortly, "one of perks of this here file-thingy. I was just being presumptuous."
She was an old woman with graying, long red hair and fair skin. Besides having the longest hair of any woman over sixty he had ever seen, she appeared relatively normal—almost like a grandmother, but with heavily darkened crow's feet under her light, hazel eyes.
"And if that's true then you shouldn't need me to diagnose you." House declared.
"I don't," the woman confirmed, confident she knew exactly what was wrong with her.
House's eyes narrowed slightly as he stood from his stool. "I'm glad we're on the same page then because I have things to do."
He reached for the door knob but her voice stopped him from leaving. "No you don't."
House smirked and turned around to face the so called 'psychic'. "Oh this should be fun," he began, "please enlighten me."
"You're simply going to go back to your office and play your guitar or bother your friend."
House smiled, "not bad," he looked towards his fingers on his left hand, "I've obviously been playing guitar, and that last comment was so generic it could apply to anyone in this hospital."
House was not easily impressed. Observation and deduction was his forte; he could read any person like an open book and solve mysteries based on the slightest clues or seemingly insignificant pieces of information. This woman was an amateur at best.
"I'm not here to impress you doctor," clarified the woman, "I just need a prescription to keep me awake."
"You have the opposite of insomnia; therefore you want me to give you the opposite of a sleeping pill." House clarified the woman's odd request with intrigue.
"Exactly. Do you have anything like that?" She asked hopefully.
"Well, not legally..." House shrugged and began writing something down on something the woman could not see.
The woman's face fell at the information. "Please doctor, I need this..." House ripped a piece of paper off of a small pad and gave it to the woman.
"Adderall?"
"It's prescribed to patients with ADHD; while they use it, others abuse it." The woman seemed confused. "Go to any college dorm and you'll be able to score some just fine."
House stood up and left the room, glad to finally get away.
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"House!"
"Yes, mommy," House called out at Cuddy's scolding tone of voice as she burst through his office.
"How did your consult with the psychic go this morning?" Asked Cuddy in a manner that told House she already knew the answer to that question.
"I told her to stop scamming people over the telephone; she spontaneously combusted and left in a delightful puff of smoke," lied House, still sitting in his chair facing away from Cuddy and tossing his favorite red ball back and forth in his hands.
Cuddy ignored House. "Well, she's back."
House caught the ball in his right hand and turned around in his chair to face Cuddy upon hearing this new information. "There's nothing wrong with..." House's words began to slow as the curiosity returned to his blue eyes and he let his sentence trail off to start a new one. "Whoa!" he interjected louder than necessary, causing Cuddy to unconsciously flinch at his loudness. He reduced his volume to a dramatic whisper and spoke out of the corner of his mouth, "someone isn't getting their beauty sleep." Before Cuddy could respond House added, "Seriously, Cuddy, I thought you ended all those wild and crazy late night party days in college. A woman of your age should—"
Cuddy cut off House's comment, not in the mood to be interrogated. "She's in a coma."
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"She was found in her car. Apparently she fell asleep at the wheel." Cuddy further explained the circumstances to House as both doctors stood above the patient's bedside. "The strange thing is," Cuddy continued, "when she fell asleep she took her foot off the gas and she slowly came to a safe stop in the middle of the road—as safe as you could call that."
"She slept herself into a coma?" House seemed skeptical at the idea that this woman had fell asleep while driving, slowly careened to a safe stop and slipped into a coma for no reason at all.
"There's no history of head trauma or brain injuries, stroke, or diabetes." Cuddy paused before looking toward House. "She could have overdosed," Cuddy reasoned. "Did you fill a prescription for her?"
"For what, insanity?" At Cuddy's serious face House changed his answer. "No."
House's face mirrored Cuddy's in its seriousness as they both looked over the sleeping woman. Her breathing and heart rate were steady, but the look on her face was almost pained—not so much to assume she was having a nightmare, but more as if she were upset to be dreaming at all.
House thought back to their previous encounter in the clinic. When she had assured him she did not need his advice, but merely his medicine, she appeared to be speaking confidently—not cocky, but as if she knew something he didn't.
And now, looking down upon this woman in an unexplicable coma, House wondered not how she fell into this deep sleep, but rather why she was so persistent upon not falling asleep. House didn't like that at all.
XXXXX
The next day...
House burst through the double doors of Cuddy's office and shot a curiously amused gaze toward his boss as her head shot up from her desk and she immediately busied herself in some files.
House's dramatic entrance became subdued as he slowly walked up to Cuddy's desk. He had a better view of Cuddy now that he was closer and almost burst out laughing once he noticed the impressions on her right cheek from resting against her jacket's sleeve for apparently a long amount of time.
"Sleeping on the job?" House accused.
"I was just..." Cuddy yawned dramatically against her will, and her posture loosened as she slouched against her desk.
"Not that I want to know, but what have you been doing late at night?" questioned House, "actually," he considered, "I do want to know. Give me all the explicit sweaty details."
"Why are you here House?" Cuddy dismised eagerly.
"You mean in your dreams?"
"Trust me, you have no place in my dreams," droned Cuddy.
"Oh, my bad," corrected House, "fantasies." He smirked ostentatiously and twirled his cane in between his skilled fingers as his striking blue eyes delved into her own.
Cuddy blamed the weak feeling in her muscels to her lack of sleep, but had to look away briefly to let the fluttering feeling in her stomache subside.
"I've been working late," admitted Cuddy.
House accepted the answer and gave one of his own. "I'm taking the case of that psychic from yesterday."
Cuddy's brow furrowed in disbelief. "There's no case, House," stated Cuddy, "she's in a coma; we admitted her to a room and hooked her up to some equipment. I put her under Dr. Tarant's care. He'll run a tox screen on her...there's nothing else we can do, but if you want a real case--"
The only sound Cuddy was rewarded with was the slamming of her office doors. Her eyes growing heavy again, she took a deep breath of cool air and shook her head in an attempt to wake herself up.
It didnt' work.
XXXXX
"The results of that tox screen, where is it?" House confronted Dr. Tarant in his office on the second floor.
"Excuse me House, but I'm a little busy here; maybe if you'd knock, I'd have some time to visit." Dr. Tarant was a tall, thin man with fashionably gelled blonde hair and brown eyes.
"The psychic," repeated House, "where are her results?"
"Did doctor Cuddy reasign her attending physician? Because otherwise her condition is confidential."
"Jeffery," began House in a dangerously cordial tone, "you--"
"--Joseph," corrected Dr. Tarant sternly.
"Yeah," agreed House, "so Joey," he continued, "you really like the burritoes the cafeteria serves on wednesdays don't you?"
Joeseph eyed House suspiciously.
"Red-headed nurse seemed to enjoy them too. Right before you enjoyed her," he stated knowingly.
"What are you getting at House?"
"So did foreign nurse, coffee girl, and doctor lazy eye."
"Have you nothing better to do than document my private life?" Dr. Tarant inquired angrily.
"Life's not so private within these walls, Heff." House continued through Tarant's protest, "What would Dr. Cuddy think of your hospital sexcapades?" asked House rhetorically as his inflection rose dangerously.
"You have no proof." He declared.
"Give me the psychic's tox screen, or I'll give Cuddy the tox screen to your special date burrito," House threatened.
Tarant's mouth dropped open and words futilely stuggled their way out.
"Either you're pathetically unsatisfying, or the hangover these women come to work with the morning after is chemically induced." House held his hand out. "I'll put money on either option," said House, "will you?"
XXXXX
"Have you seen Cuddy?" House caught Wilson in the hallway, walking at an unusually quick pace toward the emergency room.
"Come with me," demanded Wilson, his voice grave enough to silence House and have him following Wilson at arms length.
XXXXX
"What happened?" Wilson took the lead in questioning a distraught Cameron as House still remain in the dark.
"She just...I went to her office to get authorization for--that doesn't matter," Cameron cut to the chase, "she was passed out on her desk. I thought she was asleep, but when I spoke and she didn't reply I went to wake her."
At this point House knew they were referring to Cuddy. His eyes frantically searched the room for her.
Cameron continued. "She wouldn't wake up. I got her down here as quickly as possible, but..."
Cameron walked over to a closed curtain and pulled it open gently. "She's in a coma."
XXXXX
A/N: please review! beginning is the hardest part, but now I got the ball rolling, so just let me know what you think, and it'll get better next chapter!