House... from BEYOND THE GRAVE! (Or something.)

[commandettes]

[Cameron walks into House's office and throws a stack of folders onto his desk. House and Wilson are engrossed in something on House's computer and have not even given Cameron a single glance.]
Cameron: Okay, you're all caught up. I even made up some patients and did paperwork for them so you're covered for the next year and a half.
House: [not paying attention] Uh-huh.
Cameron: So can I have a hundred dollars?
House: [still not paying attention] Uh-huh.
Cameron: And you're a massive tool?
House: Uh-huh.
Cameron: What are you looking at?
Wilson: [giggling at the screen] Stuff.
House: [blindly waving his cane at Cameron, narrowly missing her face] Go away.
Cameron: [grabbing the monitor and turning it towards herself] What is this? ...Badfic? You're reading this willingly?
House: Well, now you've ruined everything. We were enjoying this before you came around. Don't you have unicorn stickers to collect?
Cameron: I already have all of series 1 and 2, I'll have you know... [She is distracted by muffled screams coming from the other room. She looks in to see the new team bound and gagged.] House...?
House: Kutner almost killed someone. They had to be punished.
Wilson: Yeah, I meant to ask about that. What did Taub and Thirteen do?
House: Nothing. I just hate them. Now grab a chair or you're in there with them, and I'll remove Thirteen's gag.
Cameron: You're evil.
[As this is going on, Foreman walks in and sees everyone settling down to read some badfic.]
Foreman: Oh, wait, I gotta run. I left my... thing in... uh... place.
House: Not so fast.
Foreman: Shit.

House smiled as he sat on the roof of Princeton Plainsbouro Teaching Hospital,

House: I guess I changed jobs.
Wilson: Cuddy finally got fed up with you and fired you. Nine hundred and sixteen strikes and you're out.
Cameron: He should've been gone years ago, then.
Foreman: [as House] Screw you, Cuddy! I'm gonna work at my dad's teaching hospital across town!
Cameron: It's the hospital equivalent of that iVid that Chase got me for Christmas. Cheapass.
House: Where is that slobbering moron, anyway? He needs to share the pain.
[Cameron pulls a silver whistle out of her lab coat and blows it. No sound comes out, at least not at a frequency heard by normal humans. House, Wilson, and Foreman look at each other, confused. Chase comes tearing down the hall and into the room, where he starts taking off his clothes until he sees House and company sitting around the computer.]
Chase: Son of a bitch.
Foreman: I thought you were kidding about the sex whistle.
House: Hey Cameron, does he...
Cameron: Don't you dare.
House and Wilson: [laughing] Come when you call him?
Cameron: Where's your Vicodin? I feel an overdose coming on.

right on the edge, legs hanging down the side of the building,

Foreman: And then his fellows pushed him off and he died. And there was much rejoicing.
All but House: Yay.

gaze directed at the millions of stars overhead, most of which hidden by smog and the lights of the New Jersey city.

Cameron: Hey author-person, you're missing some verbs here in this massive sentence. They're kind of important.
Chase: So there were approximately two stars overhead...?
House: I wouldn't really call anything in New Jersey a city. North Jersey is a suburb of New York and South Jersey is a suburb of Philadelphia.
Wilson: Yeah, Princeton's a college town at best.
Foreman: Let's be realistic here. We live in a cesspool.
Chase: But we can take day trips to the beach...
House: Oceans are not supposed to be opaque or gray, Chase.

Cuddy stood at a distance, behind him, watching him, silently, secretly,

House: So... she's stalking me.
Wilson: More like the other way around.
House: What are you saying?
Foreman: He means you're stalking Cuddy.
Cameron: [totally not bitter at all] Because you don't have a massive boner for her or anything.
Chase: Yeah, Stalky McStalkington, Stalker Extraordinaire. [House readies his cane for beatings] ...I'll be quiet.

smiling along with him, when it suddenly occured to her.

Wilson: When what occurred to her?
Cameron: That she couldn't spell "occurred."
House: How does she know I'm smiling if she's behind me?
Chase: X-ray vision, obviously.
House: Then why did she decide to renovate the hospital with massive plate-glass windows?
Foreman: Because she's lazy.

House doesn't smile. Her face suddenly morphed with horror as House stood up, still on the edge, and looked down. "House!" But it was too late. He was gone. His body rested on the cracked pavement below, shattered.

House: So I'm smiling, but I'm not, and basically all this tense change crap translates to "Papa needs some booze." [He starts to look around in his desk, to no avail.]
Foreman: House shattered... into a million pieces.
Chase: All the Cuddy's horses and all the Cuddy's men couldn't put Housey together again.
Wilson: They didn't really try too hard, though.
Cameron: They were too distracted by the Thank God House is Dead party.

The only clue he had started on the roof, was the cane he had left behind. He hadn't seen her there- if he had, he wouldn't have jumped.

Cameron: Unless she was trying to rope him into clinic duty.
House: Why would I gimp along in the afterlife without my cane?
Chase: You're too much of an atheist to believe that God will make you whole again.
Foreman: House is going to hell anyway. Satan is probably going to give him another leg-vagina.
House: Don't you dare talk smack on my leg-vag or you will get very, very familiar with this cane. And by familiar I mean biblically familiar, in the anal sense, unlubricated. You dig?

He would have turned towards her, told her how he was looking at the beautiful stars, imagining each one was a different porno flick,

Chase: That's quite an imagination you've got there.
Wilson: I'm not really sure how a star relates to Anal Gangbang 9.
House: So you're the one who took it!
Wilson: I was watching it for research purposes.
Foreman: You're an oncologist, not a proctologist.
Cameron: Next time, try Oral Cumbuckets 18 for throat cancer.
Chase: Or Jizz On My Face 5 for... face... cancer.
Foreman: Or you could just admit that you beat off to House's stolen porn. [whispers] Who wants to trade for Barely Legal Ho-bags 29?
House: Everyone in this room needs to give me back my porno right the fuck now.

and if he looked deeply enough into the star, he could see his boss, Lisa Cuddy, poledancing for him.

Wilson: Knowing House's tastes in porn, pole dancing is a little tame.
House: Yes, I know that was on the show, but the censors won't let Fox show any hardcore. Not yet, anyway.
Cameron: There's a definite lack of degradation in this fantasy.
Chase: Not enough weird fetishes, either.
House: I do not have any weird fetishes.
Wilson: You own the entire Hot Doctors Eating Cake series.
House: You watched it too, you pervert.
Foreman: It's just a girl in a lab coat eating a cake. She's not even naked.
House: [sulking] It's artistic.

Cuddy sat on her shins, looking down at House's unseen corpse, as the night's darkness hid him from the bored doctors on the inside.

Chase: [yawning] At least the author's right about us bored doctors.
Wilson: Night's darkness... as opposed to its blinding brightness?
Cameron: Aren't there any lights outside this hospital?
House: Well, she doesn't have night vision, at least. Just the x-ray.
Foreman: So you can keep prowling around her house safely, but only when it's dark.

"House..." She sobbed, tears streaming from her face. A warm hand suddenly greeted her shoulder,

Foreman: Sup, shoulder? You still between Cuddy's neck and arm?
Wilson: Well, I guess it's not House's clammy hand from the grave.
House: It'd be pretty cool if I could will my body parts to-
Cameron: Just stop there.

as she gasped, and turned to face Boy-Wonder-Oncologist, James Wilson.

Wilson: If you people are going to keep calling me the Boy Wonder, I want a cape and a theme song.
Chase: [singing] James Wilson, boy wonder oncologist, la la la la la... something that rhymes with oncologist...
House: Don't quit your day job. Actually, quit your day job because I'm tired of looking at you.
Chase: I've been thinking about it. I don't get paid enough to do every single surgery in this hospital. I haven't gotten to go home and bathe in six weeks. [Everyone slowly shifts away from Chase.]
Foreman: It's probably because you kill or maim about sixty percent of your patients, you gibbering retard. Even the guy who came to have his ingrown toenail removed.

"Cuddy, what's wrong? I've been looking for you everywh--" He stopped. His gaze had dropped upon House's cane. "Oh my god, Cuddy. Did he...?" Cuddy didn't reply, she just sobbed into her hands, makeup running down her face onto the roof.

House: Even Cuddy doesn't wear that much makeup.
Foreman: And I doubt she's going to cry a swimming pool over your dead body.
Cameron: Someone's getting some waterproof mascara for her birthday.

Wilson looked over the side of the hospital and blinked. "Oh my god..." He narrowed his eyes. "The sidewalk is smashed!" Cuddy looked up to him and smacked him accross his face.

Wilson: How could I possibly miss the massive puddle of bloody dead cripple?
Cameron: How can you see through him to the sidewalk?
Chase: Maybe he's a ghost.
Foreman: Or the x-ray vision.
House: Go figure. PPTH's resident sex machine and genius is dead, and all you care about is the sidewalk.
Wilson: We're also forgetting that Cuddy just used her pimp hand on me.
House: I dunno, it's kinda hot.
All but House: House, and Cuddy, sitting in a tree...
Chase: [continuing] K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first comes love, then comes marriage-
Foreman: Enough, Chase. Have a cookie.

"The SIDEWALK is smashed?! Wilson, what the hell is wrong with you!? House is crushed on the sidewalk and--"

Foreman: Crushed by what?
Chase: The weight of his angst?
House: His enormous pe-
Cameron: Ego?

She looked over to the spot where House had just been. There was no blood, there were no paramedics, there was no House. Her tears were dry as she stared down at the broken sidewalk in horror. "What..." Wilson stood, and helped her stand at well.

Cameron: And then pushed her off the roof. Wilson is a homicidal maniac.
Wilson: Because I fucking hate being called the Boy Wonder.
House: If it's dark out and she's too cheap to get some outside lights for the hospital, of course she's not going to see me.
Chase: I guess this is a ~~supernatural~~ story. Either that or we have an awesome janitorial staff.
House: Or Cuddy's just really, really slow.

"This is probably just some elaborate prank, Cuddy. Smashing the sidewalk, leaving his cane on the roof--" He started, only to be cut off by Cuddy's trembling voice.

Foreman: If by "elaborate," you mean "stupid and pointless."
House: Why would I fake my death? It's better to get all the flowers, candy, and pity sex when people think I'm dying.
Cameron: I didn't have sex with you.
House: I know.
Chase: Neither did I.
Foreman: Don't look at me.
[Wilson looks at his shoes and blushes.]

"I saw him jump." She clung to Wilson, shaking. "I saw his body land. It was there, I swear it was."

Foreman: You guys, I've solved the story.
Wilson: How? It makes no sense.
Foreman: Here's the thing - it never happened. Cuddy imagined the whole thing. It's all a dream or a hallucination.
House: Possibly caused by a night of lovin' from Gregory House, superstud MD.
Cameron: How is this possible?
Foreman: Because white men can't jump. [Everyone boos and throws things at Foreman, except for Chase, who is laughing hysterically.]
Chase: White men... can't... [more laughter]
Foreman: So you like that movie?
Chase: What movie?

Wilson frowned as they were both silent. After nearly ten minutes,

Foreman: You're taking the whole dramatic pause thing a bit too far.
Wilson: In the meantime, I've polished my shoes, checked my email on my Blackberry, and made a casserole.
House: And ate the whole thing too, tubby.

Wilson's cellphone shattered the silence.

Chase: You really need to take it off the sonic boom setting. I almost severed a guy's aorta when your phone rang during heart surgery.
Cameron: No, you nearly sliced his aorta when you noticed one of the nurses was wearing glitter eyeshadow.
Chase: [sadly] It was shiny...

Wilson pulled out his phone and bit his lip at the caller-ID.

Wilson: Caller ID, I bite my lip at thee!
House: Thou whoreson knave!
Cameron: Technology makes Wilson sad.
Foreman: Especially if it's House calling, because he probably wants to borrow some money.

"It's House." He flipped open the phone and pressed it against his ear.

"House, what's going on?"

"Tell Cuddy to stop freaking out."

House: Yeah. I can hear it all the way in the afterlife, and I'm trying to hit on Marilyn Monroe.
Foreman: Tell her you can hook her up with all of the barbiturates in the universe.
Cameron: Even death can't make your game look good.
Chase: Well, flashing a hundo at her and asking if she can be on top because his leg hurts doesn't really count as game.

"How... did you know I was with Cuddy?" Cuddy widened her eyes at Wilson.

"Don't ask questions. Get off the roof."

House: Preferably via the ledge.
Wilson: House has become a fascist in the afterlife. Jump first, ask questions later.

Wilson swallowed nervously, and then looked down to get House's cane.

Nothing.

"I got it with me."

Foreman: So ghost-House stole his cane?
Cameron: I can't tell who's speaking here. I guess confusion is ~~artistic~~ these days.
House: I told you guys, I'm not gonna gimp around in the afterlife. Plus I can satisfy women with my cane, if fic is to be believed.
All but House: It isn't.
Chase: So when are you going to cave and get that diamond-topped pimp cane?
Wilson: He got it, but Cuddy broke it when she realized that there was a mirror on the bottom so House could look up her skirt.

"You- you got what with you?"

"My cane, you idiot. What were you just about to get?"

"I- I... Where the hell are you?"

What House said in reply made Wilson more scared than he had ever been in his life.

Wilson: The clinic.
Cameron: Rehab.
Chase: Reading stories to the cancer kids.
Foreman: In the cafeteria, paying for his food.

Without a chance to question him, the call was disconnected.

Chase: Wilson wants to know why he suddenly feels like he has a wedgie.
Cameron: Or why Cuddy is screaming about her boobs being groped.
Foreman: Or why his lunch is suddenly missing.
House: Or why his wallet is floating in midair with all the money missing.
Wilson: [patting his pockets, then looking around] Hey... why is my wallet floating in mid-air? [He looks at House, who is holding a fishing pole. House immediately throws it across the room and starts whistling innocently.]

Cuddy's mouth was left ajar

Foreman: When is a mouth not a mouth?
Wilson: You're just lucky we didn't kill you for that White Men Can't Jump joke.
Cameron: Yeah right, Wilson, like you would kill anyone. You cried when Cuddy wanted you to throw out a picture of a kitten.
Wilson: If there's fic of me being a secret sex fiend, there's gotta be fic of me as a homicidal maniac.
House: If the sight of my cane doesn't actually cause spontaneous orgasms in every organism within a twelve-mile radius, you can't kill anyone.

as she stared down at where House's cane was, just moments before. "H- His cane...?" She looked into Wilson's eyes, pleading for an answer.

"He... has it already." They looked at eachother, searching for words that would never be found.

Chase: Like "believable plot."
Foreman: Or the words that would make this fic not terrible.
Cameron: Or "'each other' is two words."

"Let's go see House." Wilson turned around and began to walk to the elevator.

Wilson: There's an elevator on the roof?
House: My gimpy ass isn't taking the stairs.
Wilson: You didn't take the stairs before you were a gimp.

"Where is he?" Cuddy questioned, catching up with him, her eyes still filled with tears.

Wilson looked at her, unable to speak. He put an arm around her shoulder as they both walked into the elevator and pressed the button for the bottom floor. The morgue.

Wilson: You called us from the morgue?
House: Where Zombie House is waiting to devour your brains.
Cameron: Or breasts.
Foreman: Viiiiiicooooodiiiiinnn...
Chase: Hooooookeeerrrsss...
Wilson: I do not have breasts.
House: [poking Wilson's chest] Yeah right. You're at least a B cup, chunks.
Wilson: They are bigger than Cameron's...
Cameron: That's not really something to be proud of.
Foreman: Speak for yourself. It's a pretty nice rack.
Chase: Yeah, it's nicer than yours... [Cameron glares at him] Your... uh... [sighs] I got nothing here. [Cameron rolls up a medical journal and slaps Chase with it.] I'll be good.
House: I need my bourbon. [He looks through his desk drawers, but can't find it.] Where's my goddamned bourbon?

[Suddenly, House's cell phone rings. It's a restricted call.]
House: House here.
Caller: Hey, House, can you come get me? I'm in the morgue.
House: Who is this?
Caller: Don't you know? [House puts his phone on speakerphone.]
House: Listen, asshole. I just got a quantum cane that can travel through phone lines, so stop screwing with me or you'll be eating it.
Wilson: That voice sounds really familiar.
Cameron, Chase, and Foreman: Yeah, it does...
Caller: House... I'm you. [The caller laughs hysterically, then hangs up.]
All: What the hell?
[Everyone rushes down to the morgue to find Cuddy sitting on a steel table, still laughing.]
House: Okay, what did you do with my voice?
Cuddy: [pulling a voice modulator out of her pocket] Best eight bucks I ever spent. [She holds it up to her mouth and speaks, producing House's voice.] My name is House. I am a jerkass and I like to wear frilly pink dresses.
House: [hurt] It was for Halloween.
Cameron: It's January...
Chase: Even I know Halloween's not in January.
Foreman: And he's from backwards moon land.
Cuddy: [as House] I have a massively sub-par porn collection and I play piano about as well as a blind amputee. [as herself] God, I love this thing. Oh, Chase, we have an appendectomy, a C-section, a brain transplant, two experimental surgeries, a hip replacement, a skin graft, and a colonoscopy waiting for you.
Chase: Can't someone do at least one of those?
Cuddy: No. Go wash up. [Chase walks off, sulking.] The rest of you except House, get out. [Foreman, Cameron, and Wilson slowly shuffle out, singing "Bow chicka bow wow" under their breaths.]
House: You know, the smell of formaldehyde isn't a turn-on. Let's move this somewhere sexier, like a rendering plant or dump.
Cuddy: I didn't bring you here for sex. I want to know why you went $18,000 over budget when I gave you funds to redecorate your office and it looks the same.
House: I got decals for my desk.
Cuddy: ...Decals.
House: I put custom flames on the side of my desk.
Cuddy: Why?
House: To make it go faster?
Cuddy: Give me my $18,000 back now, or I'm going to remove it forcibly from every orifice in your body.
House: Well, you can't have it. I'm gonna go throw myself off the roof, then have my ghost steal my cane and call Wilson from the morgue.
Cuddy: What the hell are you on?
House: I haven't had my bourbon today.
Cuddy: Yeah, about that. I stole it. And had a few bottles. Give me my 18 grand and you can have it back.
House: [taking his checkbook out] I hate you. [He hands Cuddy a check, which she pockets.]
Cuddy: [on the voice modulator again] Oh, Cuddy, I love you. You're the best hospital dean ever and I want to touch your funbags and then marry you twice. I am an emo girly bitch who loves to wear panties and cut myself.
Wilson: [barging in] A-ha! I knew it! You two are meant to be! All the fanfic was right!
Cuddy and House: In your dreams, fatty.