I. The Impossible Dream

Knuckles clench to white, nails dig deeper with ascending altitude, and gray skylight illuminates the squinting profile of a woman would undoubtedly prefer an aisle seat. It seems worse than it is, she tells herself, but knows that the view is accurate. Something about the narrow panorama is disconcerting. Lisa Cuddy would rather be unaware that the only thing separating her from the vast vacant sky is a thin piece of glass. It isn't fear of flying so much as dread. Dread of being in confined quarters, a cramped cabin, forced to breathe stale recirculated air, surrounded by strangers. And in this case House. Who, at this moment is reaching for her fingers, prying them from the armrest one by one, almost amused by her apparent unease. Then he offers,

"Switch?"

They do. Lightly brushing against each other, her fingers on his hips to keep her balance. Or his. The briefest contact and mutual comfort. This act of kindness on House's part is instigated mostly by a dream. One whose influence has been evident since it came a few nights ago. But he convinces himself he prefers a window seat anyway.

In life, as in the air, there are aisle people and then there are window people. Some able to admit their ignorance, and others who'd rather stare at the uncertain emptiness, confronting it. House never took her for being an aisle seater.Something's changed.

Cuddy's mind is still fixed on the events of their last flight together. Fortunately, this is a short flight. No Korean men convulsing. No vomit. Unfortunately, it is not the only incident she's remembering. The engines drone on a while, she almost falls asleep.

Why they are companion passengers again is a mutual reflection. A phone call from the head of alumni relations at the University of Michigan Medical School. A call to Lisa Cuddy, Dean of Medicine at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. She was asked to give a lecture for the Medical Education department, coinciding with lectures from other successful alumnus. In other departments. She was flattered, practically ecstatic. Then Michigan asked about House. She admitted he works for her. They wanted him instead. Or rather, they wanted him to give the primary lecture and her a secondary one on administrative ethics and practice. Not on medicine. Or even medical education.

So now, here they are halfway between New Jersey and Michigan obligated to inspire the inspirable. Unwillingly responsible for enlightening a few hundred twenty somethings on the endless joys and infinite treasures found in the practice of medicine.

The patchwork farms slowly fade into the great lakes' arms as they approach the past. This is how memory is, visible but distant, with few exceptions. Something about being a little closer to the sun makes House forget that it is winter. Content watching a few minutes more, he closes the window cover and looks at her. Cuddy seems calm. But House sees what's starting beneath the surface. She's apprehensive, nervous even. And he knows it's not a fear of flying.

A flight attendant announces that they'll be landing soon and should fasten their seat belts. House knocks her knee with his own,

"Last chance to join the mile high club."

Cuddy roles her eyes and ignores him. She thinks of saying 'already a member' but doesn't, knowing it would only add fuel to a fire she has no intention of extinguishing.

When they land, Cuddy seems even more trepidacious, but House passes it off as nervousness at the prospect of public speaking. Or him speaking, really. The man did have a tendency to give three minute speeches that cost her and the hospital six figures. But that is not the prospect that is making her heart race this time.

They rent a car and Cuddy drives the hour from the airport to Ann Arbor. She drives with a certain ferocity, the kind you partake in only when it's not your car. House enjoys watching her drive, seeing the skirt ride up her legs, goosebumps on a pale thigh. High heels on a gas pedal, there's something y about the sight. 'She only has thighs for me,' grinning as a bead of sweat forms above his brow. It's cold outside and the heat is blasting, she enjoys making him sweat. House plays with the radio a while and settles on Christmas music, enjoying the leer she gives him at the irony. An atheist and a Jew listening to some tune celebratory of Jesus. He raises his index finger to be the conductor, mocking these angelic voices reciting a hymn.

The inclement weather does not slow Cuddy. In fact, the dismal sky seems to spurn her on and she speeds down the highway as if it's a test to see how well she remembers it. A route she has not taken since she left Michigan. At a nubile 25, and having just finished second in her class, and a year early. Never would she have considered then just how miserable she'd be now. This trip is making her consider how far she is from where she wants to be, in every respect.

And it's only just begun.

The hotel is twenty minutes from campus. The day is over when they arrive. Although, since they touched ground there has been so little sunlight that they can hardly tell a winter day from a winter night. The breaths of these miserable doctors stay suspended in the cold air as they tread through the snow and mud to the lobby. Cuddy is carrying most of the baggage. She always is. House didn't pack much and is struggling over patches of ice with his three legs at any rate. Swallowing a handful of when he makes it inside, more than a few paces behind Cuddy who has already checked them in.

what she drowns

Adjacent rooms await their entry. And they part, disappearing from the hallway, without saying a word. Neither has completely thawed and both are too jetlagged for words.

Cuddy steps in, brushes the snow from her hair, and is suddenly aware of her body temperature. This room is larger and she hopes to hide the fact from House. It is nominally a 'junior suite'. Which, as far as she can tell, means nothing except it's slightly bigger than a standard and has a couch. And costs 250 more per night, naturally. But they will only be here two nights, she realizes, not precisely happy about the point. Dropping the luggage and taking one long step to the bed, a limp body plummets. Resting a moment, disgusted at her situation. In medicine, and in life. Uncertain why she has made the choice to live in the shadow of Gregory House. To live under him, somehow. His boss and yet somehow subordinate. Frustration at his elevation, yet she is responsible. For him even having a job, really. Telling herself she's a smart woman who was very successful as a doctor. She was the first female and second youngest Dean of Medicine (at 32) at Princeton Plainsboro. Was, meaning isn't still.

But she should still be happy.

Pride in what's been accomplished, now she realizes she's never known happiness. The pursuit of this elusive lie may very well be what has prevented its attainment.

'I have a wonderful position.' Stagnant disbelief. 'But also less and less to do with the actual practice of medicine,' adds her mind's reigning orator. Cuddy's been living vicariously through House for years and it is time to admit it. To change it. She wants to be a doctor again. Exhausted, restless, knowing it will be a sleepless night, now she's filled with the fear that it's too late to reverse a course set in motion nearly twenty years ago.

But it is only a matter of direction and misdirection. And finding the fateful intersection.

In the claustrophobic coffin the hotel considers a shower, she makes a decision and christens herself in change. Drowning one by one all the people she's become since she left this place. The administrator, the pushover, the single, infertile, Dean of Medicine. Wanting to let every aspect of herself that is keeping her from being who she wants to be spiral down the drain. To leave them here where they were unwittingly born. The steam is warm, the room is gray, and she stands here until the hot water loses its heat. This body a certain shade of pink, amaranth, when it finds the courage to step out. Expecting infinity but seeing few parallels, she stares at her toes, avoiding the looking glass a few moments more. Doctor Lisa Cuddy is cleansed now, confronting the mirror and finding someone new in its reflection. With only a towel concealing this recently reborn form, and not even possessing the energy to finish brushing her teeth, she drags her feet to the bed and naps a while.

what he drowns

In the middle of a winter night and far from home, Greg House drinks. It is an attempt at dreamless sleep. An attempt to quell his boredom. And, alcohol is a good accomplice for all the he's about to order. House was listening to her shower. He's always listening. Tonight there's worry though. A detached concern, a hint of vigilance.

The early moon has drenched the snow with a pale shade of blue. And in between the moon and the man, finite space. Because this night is different. The gaping chasm seems traversable. Everything is beginning to feel closer. It's an illusion, he knows. But what does it matter? The thought of having water within reach is real, it doesn't make the mirage real, but the feeling is its own experience. A lie, yes. But-

"For a long time I went to bed early," House slurs to himself. He tries to quote it in French but is too drunk to impress even his own company. Thinking of a dream that's been with him every night since Cuddy bribed him into this trip, he drifts asleep, liquor leaking onto his stomach. The somber moonlight saturating the length of his body in the same blue.

In this dream there are white curtains . And he can't see himself. He knows that's it is him though, somehow. Knows that this can be only his perspective. There are mirrors but no reflections. Or refractions. They are just here to taunt him, to keep the narcissist from seeing what he really wants to see. A woman with hair the color of midnight, young and faceless approaches him. An apparition. A calendar on the wall tells him it's September. House is naked but neither cold nor ashamed. He can walk and is standing now, his right thigh intact. No pain. When this phantom nears him, he's holding a camera, but can't photograph her. Doesn't even try, he just knows he can't. It's fragmented and temporal, the way dreams usually are. There's a sense that what he recollects upon waking is incomplete. Frustrating , but each night it's a little longer and something new is revealed.

Of course, he has no idea what any of it means.

Yet.

This is the night the dream must be the most inescapable. In spite of his attempts to fill his mind with flickering images of and drown his consciousness in an assorted stream of alcohol, it comes again.

A large window, in a empty room and the same white curtains. Translucent walls. He can see himself now, not in the mirrors, but looking down at his feet and legs. Naked still. There are two calendars. January, and the other is still on September. He can walk and is somehow aware of how sad it is that he can only dream this ability. In the absence of pain House approaches the woman, a really, with a somewhat familiar semblance. He takes her hand in an attempt to pull her to him but she leans away. They pull in opposite directions, hands clasped together tight.

And then they let go.

Teardrop earrings dangle, they're white. Diamonds, no. The walls fade away, replaced by great tapestries of trees. A forest. House is standing on the shore of a lake, with a book in his hand. It's heavy. Heavier than a book should be. He begins wading into the water, holding onto the book. But he's not swimming, no, he's drowning. The book is a kind of weight, a burden and he sinks slowly into the muddy colorless swamp. Sinking, his lungs filling with liquid, sinking, trying to let go of the book, but he can't. Sinking, into darkness.

Bright eyes open wide. The same shade of blue as the seasonal night light. House reaches for the bottle but it's empty and the mini bar has long been depleted. Looking at the clock, it's 3:30. A thought and then a sound to confirm it. The crumbling up of paper. Cuddy is awake. Minutes of incessant knocking later she answers the door in her robe, not especially aware of her brimming cleavage.

"It's the middle of the night. What do you want?"

'You,' his mind answers but his mouth speaks first,

"To see what you're wearing,"

A stern sigh and she crosses her arms. Peaking his head in over her shoulder,

"My mini bar is empty."

Cuddy walks over to her refrigerator. He steps in a few feet. A pile of papers spread over her bed. She must be preparing for her lecture. Perhaps also for his lecture and lack of preparation. A trace of guilt but he blinks it away, enjoying her ass before she turns back around, tiny bottles in hand.

"Your room is bigger."

"No it's not."

"And you have a couch."

"So?"

"Is that a king sized bed?"

"Go back to your room, House."

"But I had a nightmare, mommy."

He's back in the hallway. Cuddy shoots a pan look begging him to be quiet.

"What do you suppose being in the woods means?" hollering drowsily, inflecting naked, naturally.

"It means that you are a middle aged man who has been watching too much ography at the expense of my hospital," Cuddy whispers back, particles of spit landing contemptuously on his earlobe.

"But there was a book."

The door closes.

Retreating back to his room House drinks some more, something nudging him to be nice. But the dream lingers, he knows he won't sleep again.

interpretation

Morning arrives. Both bodies somehow more tired than when they did. Another abysmally overcast day. Snow in the forecast. House is laying in bed with a mild hangover when he hears Cuddy leave her room. Motivation and his feet touch the floor, he stalks close behind.

She is stealing a very tall cup of coffee from the continental breakfast, and yawning as she leaves a puddle behind. It is a cheap buffet and she has little trust in the food. Regretting not ordering room service when House appears at her side, he looms a minute before speaking.

Modeling bedhead, an unshaven jaw, and an inside out tee shirt in a room of suits and ties, and transient businessmen, House protrudes. And she considers denying she knows the man. Like any involving him, it is a brief consideration.

"I think I've interpreted my dream."

They sit. Cuddy just sips her coffee.

"The woods symbolize the hospital, and the water, well it symbolizes change. And the woman, the woman is you. And I'm naked because well, let's face it, you want me."

The fact she hasn't stopped him by this point is a signal for him to shut up. So he does.

"Get much sleep?"

"I was up most of the night writing your speech for you. Because I know you haven't even thought about it."

"No you weren't. You were up revising your own speech. You wrote mine a week ago."

No disagreement on Cuddy's part. Lipstick on her coffee cup, the hue seems familiar to him.

"What time do we have to be there anyway?"

"Five. The lectures start at six."

"Lectures? How many are there?"

"Well you're the keynote, and then there are four more after you."

"I don't know why they want me anyway."

"Because you work at a teaching hospital. And, you're still a legend at the university."

"Not in a good way. You're the one that graduated top of your class. You run the damn hospital..."

House sips his orange juice. Cuddy knows this is his version of a compliment and it's reminiscent of a first encounter. But she shrugs it off, standing.

"And you have to wear a suit. And a tie," touching his shoulder as she passes.

They spend the rest of the day separate. Alone. Cuddy revises her short speech several more times, giving herself the option of several drafts. House irons his suit and combs his hair. Both of them secretly anticipating this return. Neither aware they are sharing the same thought. Eventually, Cuddy escapes her room for lunch.

A sliver of green on the other side of the glass. In a hotel, in a place, in a season suffering from an abominable lack of color, green. It's a tennis court. A blanket of white powder covers all but one corner. And more is accumulating. It's a sad analogy Cuddy thinks, 'I am the tennis court.' Then suddenly aware of the unstable axis on which her world is spinning, she concludes this is how time must be. Everybody knows that the earth revolves, it is a truth, scientifically proven. But nobody sees the world moving, and we can be perfectly content to live oblivious to the fact it is. This same ignorance we apply to the passage of time. But there will always be rare occasions when we are reminded the ground beneath us is constantly changing. And we can succumb to existential vertigo or we can resist it and run, a race against the treadmill that consumes minutes, days, years. To convince yourself you can win this race, for even a moment to believe it, that is true happiness. Staring out at a snow covered tennis court, Cuddy decides to participate in the marathon.

It is nearly four when her hand meets his door. Nervously knocking, afraid of returning to a place that has changed. A place she won't recognize. It is the man standing in the threshold that she doesn't recognize though. It is Gregory House, the one who is nearly fifty and has 'MD' after his name, but it more resembles a doppleganger. A metamorphosis has taken place since this morning. He looks civilized, dapper even. Shaven, it's beginning to grow back but there's effort. His hair isn't just combed, it's styled. And there appears to be more of it. His ears are pinker. Eyelashes longer. Eyes brighter. Teeth whiter. Is he taller? Double breasted and wingtipped, yes. Black suit, sky blue shirt, red tie, a symbolic tricolor of fashion. Almost professional looking. Younger, Cuddy thinks, somehow he looks young.

She tries not to gape,

"Wow. Did you shave?"

"Nah. My face just fell on a razor. Happens once or twice a decade."

House smirks at the thought of Cuddy checking him out. As he tries not to limp much, tries to keep up the image, following close behind her down the hall.

Sliding doors open to a very white world. Both blinded for moment they take a step outside, their ankles immediately sinking in the snow. Finding the car is a bit like three card monte. When they finally guess the ace of diamonds, they clear it off as good as they can knowing they are running out of time. It starts, on the third try and Cuddy speeds away. The sedan heats up quickly and the windows thaw. But the snow storm is making a twenty minute drive more than thirty.

Cuddy looks beautiful against the tan leather of the driver's seat. The interior of a car is actually an intimate environment. Especially in a snow storm. It's inescapable. It's shelter. And they're sharing it. They're close enough that she can't hide from his penetrating eyes. House is watching her hands tight around the steering wheel. A grip he wishes he were a recipient of. Ivory nails and an empty ring finger. Concealed cleavage. Determined face, the white landscape mirrored in her eyes. Gorgeous lips. When she brakes as she nears the ramp to get on the highway her leg moves and House looks down, her conservative pencil skirt covering all but just the bottom of her thighs, knees lost under the dashboard. As her right foot hits the brake again, the car does not stop. It does not even slow. It slides, in a diagonal, obtuse angle towards oncoming traffic. She tries to steer in the other direction, toward a hillside, the shoulder of the ramp, but it's no use. They are the victims of icy inertia. When she realizes the uselessness of trying to steer , Cuddy extends an arm, reaching, really for anything. And finding him. House takes her hand and turning his head sees the terrified profile of a woman who's lost what little control she has in the world.

And realizes it.

In this moment, Cuddy isn't praying, or doing whatever people should do when they think they are about to die. She is wishing, hoping, begging for him to remember. 'This,' she thinks as his thumb is jostled across her hand. They slide until the slick substance propelling them lets the vehicle lose momentum. They've successfully spun nearly ninety degrees. The front bumper of the car is nosing into the right lane of the highway. Her hand pulls away from his quickly and they both breathe. Cuddy doesn't look at him, afraid there may be tears in her eyes. Not because of this experience but rather because she now knows he'll never remember.

1301 Catherine Road. They arrive, late. Stepping into a stuffy lecture hall filled with lab coats and those who aspire to wear them. These Princetonians and the other lecturers are herded into a corner off stage. Cuddy gives House the speech she wrote for him just as a stout, mannish woman, who is evidently in charge, urges, or rather pushes House up on stage while pointing at the face of her watch.

Standing behind a podium, awkwardly but not nervous, as the curtains open, House's cynical eyes pan across the room. Seeing students, doctors, faces he will never see again. Head turning, searching for Cuddy. For the comfort. For the forceable encouragement, 'Don't mess this up,' glare. But she's not looking at him. She's looking out. And then a hand rises to her necklace. Something he didn't notice in the car. Cuddy adjusts the jewelry, as if it's choking her, a nervous habit. Then he sees it. An earring.

And time stops, reverses direction. It all comes back. It all makes sense.

House is remembering.