Maybe if she hadn't seen it, it wouldn't have happened.
She'd been the first to leave the pub the three of them had decided to grab a drink at. They were just making small talk, and so not too long after they came in exhaustion and boredom won over, and she said good night to them. Maybe a touch of that third-wheel feeling had her leaving early, too. That feeling that seemed permanent lately.
The night was humid, but chilled. It was early in the morning. She was weighed down with the kind weariness that made every foot fall on the wet pavement a kind of agony that didn't quite reach words.
Jessica Adams found her car quickly in the small lot, and yanked open the sticky driver's side door. She fell into the seat, throwing her bag carelessly into the passenger side. It toppled over, spilling it's contents on the floor of the car. She didn't have the energy to do anything but close the door and sit there, staring at the sepia colored parking lot.
Park appeared after a while, coming from the direction of the pub. She saw the smaller woman grope around for her keys, but Adams didn't call out to her. Her mouth couldn't move anymore today.
She didn't really make a conscious decision to lean down and pick her things up off the floor, righting her bag and placing her cellphone, ID badge, and a few tampons back inside the appropriate pockets. She sighed as she stretched down to scrape them up off the carpet. Her half a beer didn't do much in perking her up, in the way Chase thought it would've.
She straightened up again in her seat, fingers searching for the ignition, when she froze again, her eyes locking on the area around Park's car, thirty feet in front of her.
Oh yes, Adams was definitely a third wheel.
Shit.
Park and Chase were embracing, clearly spontaneous in their nature. Their lips were pressed together fervidly, with a deep, lustful, intensity that Adams could hardly say she'd experienced herself. They didn't appear to be having sex yet, but after seeing that, Adams couldn't imagine either ending up alone in bed tonight.
She had a white knuckle grip on the steering wheel as she drove home.
Lying in her own bed, she stared at the darkened ceiling, sleep evading her. Three months, since Chase had become head of the department of diagnostics. Three months, since Gregory House had died in a warehouse fire with a heroine addicted patient. Three months, since James Wilson had taken his final leave of absence.
Three months, in which Adams had had to endure working for someone she was in love with, someone who clearly didn't have any interest in loving her back. At least, not anymore.
She knew she couldn't keep this up for long. Maybe that little scene was the kick in the pants she needed to get her to realize where her relationship with Chase was going.
They used to be together all the time. Always sent out as a pair to get blood or do any MRI. They looked good together. Two beautiful people in love made everybody swoon. When it was one-sided, not so much.
House had gone, and Chase had fallen back on Park, for whatever reason, and soon they were always together, running errands, eating lunch, treating patients. They had their private jokes and secret shared looks and rituals no one else understood. Sure, they looked funny together, but they also looked happy. Park had done something Adams couldn't, and that was get Chase over House's death and back to being a professional.
And now this. Snogging in a parking lot at two in the morning. That was devotion, if they were anywhere near as tired as Adams was.
The universe is just cruel, she thought, looking at the white textured ceiling with the blankets pulled up to her slender chin. Of all the signs that could've been sent to tell her it was time to leave Princeton-Plainsboro and quit crushing on her boss, the one that would injure her the most had to be chosen.
She felt tears gathering in her eyes, but suppressed them and rolled over onto her side. She slept for sixteen hours straight.
When she awoke in the early evening, she knew what she had to do.
Author's Note: Alright, so there'll be probably one or two more chapters to this. Just a little post-finale idea. Please review!