House knows the moment when they realise it is hopeless. From the observation deck above the operating room he watches them frantically trying to revive the body on the table.

He doesn't stay. They will keep on trying to revive him, even though they know it is futile. He doesn't want to stay to watch that.

He retreats to his office and the balcony he shares with Wilson. Lights up a cigarette and smokes it. It is another hour before he hears Cuddy opening the door. He turns to see her and she grabs him and hugs him and he feels her tears wetting his shirt. He is completely numb.

Wilson is dead.

He grabs the mirror off the wall, hurling it the floor, hardly noticing the destruction as it shatters.

Two bottles of Vicodin, that's all he can see. Sweet oblivion. Maybe he will take a couple to make the pain disappear for a few hours. Maybe he will sit here and swallow the contents of both bottles to make the pain go permanently.

The debacle with Hannah just proves that it doesn't matter what you do. You can do everything right, say all the right things, you can be right and it just doesn't make a damn bit of difference. Hannah died. After all that she had gone through, after he had cut her leg off with her screaming in his ear she had still died. Just like Amber, just like Kutner, just like Wilson.

He twists the top off the Vicodin bottle, tips them out in the palm of his hand. One year, it's been one year since he last had any. Six months since Wilson died. He knew that they had all expected him to go back on the drugs when Wilson died, had expected him to spiral downwards into the same old self destructive patterns. Hell, Cuddy had put a guard on Tucker's door – as if she expected House to go in there and seek revenge for the death of his friend.

House hadn't really known how to react. The loss of Wilson was too much, too big, for him to comprehend. Even when Wilson had left him before there was always the possibility of him returning. Now there was no hope, no course of action he could take that would bring Wilson back.

Not knowing what else to do he had thrown himself into his therapy. He had seen Nolan twice a week for the first couple of months. Had done all the grief things, counselling, meetings, journalling his feelings about his friend dying needlessly. Had tried to move on with his life, and find some meaning in what remained of it.

It hasn't made one damn bit of difference. Here he is again. Bottle of pills in one hand, loneliness and despair in the other. Life and death. Happiness and misery.

His head is throbbing, the wound on his shoulder stabbing him with every movement. His leg is relentless. There is dirt in his hair, in his clothes, in every crease of his body. Blood is trickling down his arm and tears are leaking out of his eyes.

Save me, he thinks, I just need someone to save me. I can't do this alone any more. It's too much. I just need...

"I'm here, House."

His head snaps up at the quiet words.

Wilson. Crouching beside him. A crumpled, rumpled Wilson, comfortable in jeans and a sweatshirt. Smiling at House as if House is the only person in the world who matters.

For one moment House feels an explosion of joy at the sight of his friend. Wilson is here. Then reality crashes in and he scuttles back against the wall, eyes going wide and heart racing. He can't go through this again, he just can't. The Vicodin bottle drops from his hand and rolls across the floor.

"It's okay, House. It's me. You're okay."

House shakes his head. He won't engage in conversation with this hallucination, won't indulge in the sick games he played with Amber. He closes his eyes, trying to shut out the sight of his friend.

"I'm not an hallucination House. You're not hallucinating. It's okay. I can prove it to you."

House keeps his eyes shut, he won't talk to the man, he won't. Wilson is dead. He saw his dead body in the morgue. Wilson is not here.

So why can he hear Wilson's voice – still talking?

"You know that password on my laptop? The one you haven't been able to figure out since I died? If I tell you what it is will you believe me? That's something you don't know, so I can't be a figment of your imagination."

House opens his eyes and stares at him.

"It's snoopysophiejuly." Wilson smiles. "The name of my first dog, the first girl I kissed and the month we met."

House knows that his subconscious mind could never come up with that password. He dares to hope.

"Do you want to get the laptop and try it out?" Wilson asks. "Will that convince you?"

Finally House talks. "No, I'll try it later."

"But..."

"I just want to believe that you're here. Just for a few minutes."

Wilson nods and sits down on the floor beside House, among the shards of the ruined mirror. The sharp edges of the glass don't seem to bother him.

"If you're not an hallucination then what are you? Wilson's long lost twin brother? Please don't tell me you didn't really die on that operating table?"

Wilson laughs softly.

"You watch too many soaps House." He stares at House, capturing his gaze. "You already know what I am."

"I don't believe in angels and demons and all that crap."

"Well, I'm not an angel. Or a demon. House, you know that there is something after death. You've been there. You would never talk about it, but you know that there is something there."

House tries to deny it, but the memories are too vivid. He knows. He has been to that other side three times. He doesn't know details but he knows that there is something.

"So, you're a ghost. Have you come back to prepare me for my passage, to save my soul? To fix something that you left undone?"

"Again with the television shows, House." Wilson stares at him fondly and House can't help thinking that ghost Wilson seems a lot more mellow than his complicated friend. Maybe Wilson has found some peace in the afterlife.

"I came because my friend needed some help. You've had a rough day."

House remembers those times when he had lost a patient, when he and his team had killed a woman. Wilson had come and sat quietly with him, drinking coffee, bringing comfort with his presence.

"I did everything right and she died. I cut off her damn leg and she still died."

"Tell me about it."

House does, he talks long into the night to Wilson. Tells him all the events of the day. The fear of crawling through the debris, the second cave-in that could have taken his life. Cuddy's words that had hurt him so deeply. His own revelations to Hannah, things that he had never said to anyone, had barely admitted even to himself.

He had never talked to Wilson like this when he was alive. Now he wishes that he had.

Wilson listens and doesn't interrupt, providing a supportive presence. He stays seated close to House, his shoulder almost merging with House's.

The light from the early morning sun is hitting the bathroom when House finally winds down. There are tears in his eyes but he feels better, like a burden he has been carrying has been lifted. He thumps his head back against the wall and looks at Wilson.

"I wish you hadn't died."

House's eyes close. The strain of the day catches up to him and he nods off, Wilson sitting quietly beside him.

When House wakes up the apartment is empty. Wilson is gone. House levers himself to his feet, staggers to the bedroom and pulls Wilson's laptop out from under his bed. With shaky hands he enters the password and watches the laptop burst into life, confirming what he already knew.

He wonders if Wilson will ever appear again. He thinks maybe he will, there is a presence in the apartment, a sense of peace that wasn't there before.

He retrieves the bottles of Vicodin and flushes the pills down the toilet, he won't be needing them now.