A/N: This chapter references "Three Stories," and includes actual dialogue from the episode, and a tiny bit from "Fidelity." So if it seems familiar, that's why. I don't own House MD, the characters therein, or the dialogue I snitched. :-p

Things are going swimmingly, you think, which surely means all hell is about to break loose in one form or another. You've convinced Allison to put her stuff in the two drawers you'd given her, and you even got a chance to snoop when she wasn't home. Your snooping yielded a framed wedding picture, which gave you a strange feeling in your stomach not unlike the time you ate bad sushi. In her white gown, she looks so very young and hopeful, the fairy-tale bride with her fairy-tale groom. He's a handsome dark-haired guy looking down on her with utter adoration as she leans into him. Another guy, the best man, you presume, stands beside her, a step removed from the happy couple. He wears a goofy grin to match his goofy tie, but his eyes are on her, Allison. Though he looks like a frat boy ready to ditch his suit and head for the nearest keg party, there is also something deeper lurking in the depths of his gaze. You can't help but conclude that he too got caught up in her spell.

You still have no idea what happened to the groom, beyond the fact that his life was cut short. He looks like the picture of good health. Your keen observational skills detect nothing medically wrong. But as a doctor you know that things can change in a heartbeat, life can turn to death so very easily. Hell, you don't even have to be a doctor to know that. You've experienced it yourself.

Other than her clothes and a printout of her bank account with a pathetically low balance -her full name is Allison Renee Cameron, you note with interest- there is a pink porcelain figurine of a woman in Victorian dress, a little mirrored jewelry box that holds a gold wedding band, a pair of earrings and a delicate silver necklace. There is nothing else of interest and you are disappointed; you aren't sure if it's because you found so little or because her entire life has been boiled down to this small handful of possessions.

Though she uses the spare key and has consented to leave her things in the drawer, she is still mostly quiet and a little skittish about accepting help of any kind. But you still have incredible sex on a regular basis, and as long as that keeps up, you are mostly content to let her be. Mostly.

You are just escaping clinic duty in exchange for substitute-teaching a class in diagnostics, a bargain you made with Cuddy, when...

"Hi Greg."

Turning at the sound of the voice that you haven't heard in five years, you find your past standing before you, looking very much the way she did when she walked out of your life. This is hell, breaking loose, you think.

"Stacy," you say, rubbing your brow to ease the sudden headache pulsing behind your eyes.

"How are you doing?"

"How am I doing? Well, the last five years have been like... you ever see those Girls Gone Wild videos?"

"Your life's been like that, or your life's been spent watching them?"

You almost laugh at that. If only she knew.

"I have missed you," she admits, sidling up beside you at the nurse's station, her arm brushing against yours.

"Is that why you're here?"

She shakes her head and passes you a file and a set of X-rays. "I need your help."

"Who am I looking at?" you ask as you hold the films up to the light.

"My husband."

"Who is suffering from abdominal pain and fainting spells. No sign of tumors, no vasculitis. Could be indigestion, or maybe a kidney stone. A little one can pack a lot of wallop."

"Did you think I wasn't going to get married?"

Leave it to her to get right to the heart of the matter. "Not to someone so poorly endowed," you quip. "This guy's pancreas is pathetic."

You pass back her husband's file and walk off, eager to put some distance between the past and the present, but as expected, she follows, persistent as ever.

"There is no kidney stone, no indigestion. Three hospitals, five doctors, not one of them found anything."

"Well maybe there's nothing to be found."

"Right! You suddenly trust doctors, love puppies and long walks in the rain."

"The walks are out," you snap, angry that she can waltz in and act like she knows anything about your current life.

Grabbing your arm, she jerks you around to face her. "I was around you long enough to know when something's not right. Mark's had personality changes. He's acting strange, disconnected...

"Interesting. It means there's either a neurological component or he's having an affair." A small part of you is hoping for the latter, just to see her suffer a betrayal like you did five years ago.

"No affair, no nothing! He's sick! I know you're not too busy; you avoid work like the plague. Unless it actually is the plague. I'm asking you a favor."

A favor. You almost snort at the irony that she wants you to do her a favor after she cast aside your wishes and had a chunk of your thigh cut out against your will. You don't owe her anything and you are in no mood for passing out favors.

"I'm not too busy," you admit, as you enter the elevator, "but I'm not sure I want him to live. It's good seeing you again."

Now you are home after a long day of teaching America's future doctors (idiots, all of them) the art of diagnosing leg pain. At the end of the class, you left a quick message on Stacy's voice mail, following it up with the company of Jack Daniels in the dark of your office for more than a few hours. You will take on her husband's case, though you're not sure why. Maybe you'll get lucky and he'll have something incurable.

Half-drunk, you stare at the paper from class slightly crumpled in your hand, scribbles of red, yellow, and brown that blur together before your eyes. Shapes emerge, like some sort of Rorschach inkblot: a snake, a rabid dog, the familiar face of a woman you once loved and maybe still do, destruction and betrayal in the form of a Crayola tornado.

The future is looking dim, you think, pinning your tea-colored blob to the wall above your desk. The fact that none of the students got the correct diagnosis awakens within you a renewed impatience with humanity at large. That, and Stacy's return. Your little art project will serve as a reminder of why letting Stacy back in your life in any capacity is a bad idea. You are going to keep it there as long as necessary.

"Got some new art?" Allison asks, emerging from the kitchen in her pajamas, a mug of tea in her hands. She moves closer to get a better look, and you stare too, lost in the inkblot past.

"That," you say, pointing toward the paper, "is the color of a man's urine after suffering from severe undiagnosed leg pain. His kidney's began to shut down and he almost died. Actually, he was dead for over a minute. And no one knew what the hell was going on."

"Sounds like muscle death," she says, and your head snaps around so fast you hear a popping sound.

"What did you say?"

"Dying muscle leaks myoglobin. It's toxic to the kidneys," she replies, refusing to meet your gaze as heat seeps into her cheeks and turns them pink.

"How in the hell did you know that?" you wonder, a quiet rage rising within you. No one, not any of your doctors, not any of those useless students figured it out. But Allison, barista and former prostitute, has the answer in ten seconds. The Twilight Zone theme sounds somewhere in the back of your head.

"I read about it in a book once," she lies, and you scoff and say, "Try again."

Sighing deeply, she stops studying her mug of tea and finally looks into your eyes. "I went to medical school. Long time ago."

Well hell. You need to sit down before your leg gives out on you, so you move around her and plop down on the couch, elbows on your knees as you take in this new information about the woman you are sleeping with.

"And you didn't think this information was relevant until now?"

She shrugs and sits down in the chair, looking at you through lowered lashes. "I... don't know. I guess not. I didn't finish. Dropped out with less than two years to go."

"Why?"

"Because my husband got sick. Thyroid cancer, metastasized to his brain. I quit to care for him, and... then he died and I was left alone with a pile of medical bills, funeral expenses and student loans I had no way of repaying."

Now she is blinking back tears and you find it hard to look at her, all naked vulnerability and sadness. Damn. "So you took up prostitution to pay the bills."

"I was desperate. I just wanted to pay off my debt and go back to school. I finally did. Pay off the debt, I mean. Now I'm saving up to return to school."

"I wish you would've told me," you mutter, thinking of all the ways you might have been able to help. But then... she wouldn't have accepted it, so it was probably for the best. "Medical school is pricey. Wouldn't it have been faster to save up if you'd stuck with... "

"Yes, but not at the cost of my self-respect. I promised myself that once the debt was paid off, I was done. I need distance between that life and the one I've always dreamed of."

You can only nod at that, weary beyond words. The day has just about drained the life right out of you, and all you want is bed, but at the moment that seems about a hundred miles away.

"Come on," she says, suddenly standing in front of you with her hand outstretched. "Seems like you've had a bad day. I'll give you a massage if you want."

How can you resist? You take her hand and lean on her all the way to the bed, where you collapse and let her work her magic on your aching limbs. And somewhere during the only moment of bliss you've felt all day, you find yourself telling her about Stacy, your leg, her betrayal, and her sudden reappearance in your life.