"But she's real, right?"
House was startled out of his thoughts, only slowly coming back from his mind to where he was currently. Folding his hands under his head he focused on the white ceiling above him, blinking into the darkness surrounding his bed.
So that was where he had ended up finally.
Sharing this cell (because he never would call this room a room, actually) with a real psycho.
Though he had to admit that the guy was the funny kind of crazy instead of the makes-you-want-to-hide-under-your-bed kind of it. Alvie was sitting on his bed like a five year old, legs crossed, jumping up and down a bit while House was telling him the story how he had ended up in the psych ward.
"She is, isn't she?"
House sighed. His cell-mate really could be annoying.
"Yah… she was real. Though is wish sometimes she wasn't…"
"And because of her you ended up here? What a bitch!" Alvie spat, sympathizing with House.
The younger man nearly jumped out of his bed when House shot up from his.
"SHE IS… not the reason", he said, keeping his voice low after the first two words.
"I was popping pills until I started halluzinating… and actually I think I'm better off in here. Who knows what would happen to me outside… I mean, craving Cuddy really makes me belong in here. Out there… jeez, some evil mind would make me move in with Wilson, who'd hook up with one of his ex-wifes and throws me out after he's done with me, Chase might kill some tyrant from god knows where, somehow my department runs out of interesting cases for a very long time, so that evil mind locks me into a room with a dying man to have boring, but deep conversations, and in the end of it all, Cuddy dumps her boyfriend to declare her undying love to me!" he ranted, falling back into his pillow again.
Alvie sighed and also leaned back on his bed.
"That doesn't sound good."
"Nope. Not at all."
It was silent for a while, then his cell-mate spoke up again.
"What would have happened if Cameron had not worked for the CIA."
"I never said she was working for them… I guess from what she told me it was more a private kind of…" searching for a fitting word House only could come up with "CIA…"
"But would you still have ended up here if all that not would have happened…?" Alvie insisted, making House think about the possibility that the guy in the bed next to him was not as crazy as he wanted everyone to believe.
"Hmmm… I guess she would have taken back Chase after she dumped him, quit because I fired him, I still would have had to hire new underlings, take back Foreman, started popping more and more pills, would halluzinate craving Cuddles, and maybe Cam and Chase were married by now… yap, I definitely would have ended up here, hadn't she worked for them", he then concluded.
Alvie just made "hmm", looking at the ceiling for a while, making House believe finally he'd fallen asleep.
"Do you think things would have changed if she'd stayed instead of leaving you?" the man in the other bed silently asked into the darkness.
Alvie listend for quite a while, but didn't get an answer, finally thinking that House was sleeping. Fisting his pillow into a more comfortable lump of feathers he decided to bug the other man about it again tomorrow.
House was staring at the ceiling silently, ignoring the light in the hallway being switched on, shining through the small window in the door.
The paranoid guy two doors down the hallway had escaped from his cell, yelling that they were there to get him.
He didn't know how right he was – except for him not being the designated target…