Author's Note: This is a rewrite of my fic Broken which I wrote about ten years ago now. I'm updating bits of it as I go so it is slightly different, but it's essentially the same story.
Set post-Series 1.
Prologue
Looking back, Allison Cameron couldn't believe how quickly it all changed.
Six words. That's all it took. Six measly words took her from happiness to something else entirely. Hurt. Fear. Terror.
Seven syllables. They hadn't even registered properly at first. She had been otherwise occupied, it wasn't until later when she played them back that she realised what she'd known deep down all along.
She was an expert at trying not to see things that were right under her nose. She'd avoided the truth about her husband's illness; she'd avoided the knowledge that her feelings towards House weren't reciprocated; and now this.
She'd known before he said them, of course she did. The relationship was running its course, it was only a matter of time before it ended. And once he'd uttered those words, the countdown went into double time.
But he wasn't about to let her walk away that easily.
It was just as he'd whispered to her; hot and sweaty, on top of her and inside her, one hand gripping the bedframe and the other her bound wrists:
I love it when you struggle.