Author's Note: Finally, the chapter that explains it all! Hope you guys all enjoy this one.
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/-/- A Few Days Later
If someone had walked up to her and asked her what she was doing there, she would have had her ready made lie flowing off the tip of her tongue. She would have simply said that she had been in the neighbourhood and that she had some sort of medical question to ask of him. But it was just that- a lie- and anyone, most certainly herself, could have spotted that in an instant. But it was a convenient excuse to explain the real reason.
She had very nearly broken down and cried the day she turned him away- again. It always seemed to be her who walked away. Back at college, she had left. When he had propositioned her for the first time, she had said no. When they shared one of the best nights of her life, she had been the one who got angry and told him to leave. And yet he was always there waiting for her, wanting her, begging her to come back.
It wasn't a simple matter of wanting him or needing him or even missing him in any physical sense of the word. It was more a mental thing- an addiction that she had once stopped unexpectedly and, when she had been allowed to taste it just one more time, craved with a sudden and uncontrollable desire. But, just as with an addiction, there was a certain guilt and a certain shame to not being able to control or stop it. And she couldn't help but feel like an ass for letting herself succumb to those old urges. And she couldn't help but feel the guilt rushing through her every time she looked at him, every time she thought about him, every time she relived that night and craved more.
But it wasn't just the sex she craved. It was him. He was her addiction. She had fallen in love with his smile, and his laugh, and his eyes, and his humour, and his wit, and his intelligence, and his company. Most of all, she just loved being with him.
That was what she missed. And at some point over the past few days, it had just clicked in her mind how stupid she had been to turn down his off of simple friendship. She could be around him without lusting after him and she was sure that he could do the same.
And that was why she was there, standing on the sidewalk, staring up at the single number adorning his apartment door. It had probably taken her a good ten minutes of sitting her car to work up the courage to walk across the street. And she was sure that she had been standing there for five minutes, just staring, wondering if he would notice her before long and save her the hassle of walking up the two stairs and knocking.
But he hadn't and finally the cold whipping of the wind had gotten to her and suddenly, without conscious thought, she was standing in front of his door, her knuckles knocking against the wood door.
She wouldn't say that he looked all together surprised when he opened the door and saw her standing there. But, then again, she wouldn't say that he wasn't. His brows seemed to rise just slightly and there was a cloud of confusion floating in his eyes, but there was no awkward twitch of his mouth. He didn't even ask why she was there. He simply let the moment of silence float between the two of them before Lisa finally asked, "Is Stacy here?"
"No. She's out of town for the weekend. Some work thing."
"Oh…" It wasn't the most intelligent reply but it was the first that came to mind. Of course she was relieved that Stacy wasn't there; it would only make this confrontation impossible. She couldn't ask the question she wanted- needed- answered if Stacy was there to hear the story. But, somehow, it made her feel like she had lost that one safety net she had left. Without Stacy around, there were no boundaries- at least not for that night- and having no boundaries was a dangerous thing when House was involved.
He shifted against the doorframe, moving away and exposing the hallway. "Do you want to come in?" Her slender eyebrow rose at the question. "Um… you're the one who wants to talk and it's cold out here."
Slowly, her head bobbed gently, but she hesitated, shifting her weight as if uncertain of whether or not she ought to enter. But then she shifted her weight forward and his arm rose unconsciously to let her step under it.
"You want a beer?" he asked over his shoulder. She just arched her brow at him again, this time with a soft scolding smirk playing on her lips. "Or water," he shrugged.
"Water, please."
She watched as he passed her for a moment before deciding to follow him. His strides were longer; she only passed through the doorway by the time he was using his elbow to push the refrigerator door closed. He didn't seem surprised to find her a few steps behind him and simply held out his hand. She stepped closer, taking the water bottle from him, and then stepping away. His back found the edge of the countertop as he snapped open his pop can. She glanced behind her and then did likewise, leaning against the counter on the opposite side of the room.
"So…"
"So…" she sighed back.
"There was something you wanted to discuss?"
"Um… yeah… Just… There's something I was thinking about the other day…" She wasn't looking at him, her eyes too focused on her hands awkwardly cradling the water bottle, but she knew that he was cocking his eyebrow at her, maybe titling his head to the side as his eyes studied her, trying to figure out what was running through her mind before even she had organized her thoughts. "Back in college… You apologized… Hell, you left about three thousand messages on my answering machine, but you never actually told me what happened."
"Because you never picked up the phone and asked."
She looked up at him. His eyes seemed bluer. His hands seemed shakier. His breathing seemed slower. She could tell that he was wondering where she was going just as much as she was. "True… So I'm asking now."
And then he sighed, the tides suddenly turned and his own mind whirling to a standstill as he tried to figure out what to say and how to say it. His gaze fell. She watched him watching his pop can. "You remember Alice, right?" he looked up at her, "Other than… that."
"Yeah," she shrugged, "She was your best friend's girlfriend."
"Yep," the tone was awkward, not quite sarcastic but not sincere either. "And she was always hitting on me."
"Oh yeah… almost forgot about that." The dryness of her tone was enough to get him to look up at her, a humourless chuckle escaping him. But then his eyes fell again and he was studying his hands instead of her, letting himself be lost in his memories and not her eyes.
"So that night-"
"Which night?"
"Of Rob's party." He glanced up at her, then back down, "I got drunk… Well, no actually I was plastered. I'm not sure how I got home- hell, I don't remember getting home. I don't really remember much about that night. But I remember waking up the next morning, and she was there. I didn't… I didn't decide that night at the party that I wanted someone to have a little fun with. And I certainly never at any point in my life said 'hey, Alice is pretty hot and she's willing, why the hell not fuck her?' I… I was drunk. And that's a bad excuse, but it's all I got."
"And all the times she called you?" She felt far more hesitant than her voice let on, but her own eyes were lost in the texture of her hands and the bumpy feel of the bottle cap against her palm. She didn't notice the way he looked up at her, brows drawn and face tighten. She simply could tell that he didn't remember what she was talking about. "I picked up the phone quite a few times and it was her after that night. And I know I saw a couple of messages written on napkins about how she had called you and wanted you to call her back."
He sighed. She looked up to see his cheeks puffed out as he nodded at the floor. She couldn't say she had seen Greg ever look awkward or unsure of himself- he was always right, he was always confident, he was always in control- but in that moment, with his brows drawn and his eyes staring down at his pop can and his breath unsteady and his shoulders hunched, she could tell how hard this moment was for him. He wanted so badly for her to believe him and forgive him for something so far in their past. "I forgot about that… She wanted to talk about that night. She and Rob were never very steady and they had an agreement about sleeping with other people. She wanted… to talk, to screw me again, I don't know. But I was ignoring her. I didn't want to talk about it; I wanted it to just end with that one awkward morning."
With every word he uttered, the more awkward she felt. The more she found her eyes fluttering back to her water bottle. The more she found herself slumping into the counter. The more she found herself feeling like an idiot. She had been young once, naïve and impressionable. She had forgiven and moved on, but she had never changed her opinion of him.
But his words had explained away all her suspicions but one. And slowly she forced herself to look back at him. He was watching her, hesitantly and from the corner of his eyes as his chin was still pointed towards his chest. She forced in a breath, "And the day I found you two?"
She could see the wince pulling at his eyes and nose long before she had finished her question. "Yeah, um…" his tongue snaked out to wet his lips and his eyes dropped to the floor for a moment, "She got annoyed that I was ignoring her," he scratched as his temple, his eyes flickering briefly to meet hers, "And she came over that day. I didn't know she was coming. We… we talked about things. About how," he sighed, his eyes falling shut and his hand falling dully to his side. "How I felt about you. I told her that there was nothing between her and me and that I didn't want to screw it up with you. I asked her not to bring that night up again. She seemed fine with it. I walked her to the door and she was on her way out when she kissed me." He looked up at her then, startling her with how bright his eyes suddenly seemed, "That was it- just the one kiss. I didn't know you were standing there. I wasn't trying to hide an affair from you."
"Well you did. A pathetic one night stand, but you still hid it from me."
"Yeah… I'm sorry." He looked away, his hand scrubbing through his hair, before he found her eyes again. "I screwed up. I know that. But I never thought that you would just completely walk out of my life like that. Not that quickly." She looked down then, his piercing eyes too much to take. Her fingers ran over the bottle cap, letting the scratchy sensation cover the shame she felt pooling into every pore in her body.
For a long time she couldn't bring herself to look up at him. It wasn't until he spoke again, until she heard the desperate need for an answer in his voice, that she met his eyes again. "Why did you?"
"Why did I what?"
"Leave like that. You didn't even try to talk to me."
She swallowed back the tears and the anger and the guilt and the humiliation and the shame and shook her head. "Because I was hurt, Greg. I heard this rumour about you and Alice going home together after Rob's party. And," she shrugged, her eyes finding the ceiling, "I didn't really care. I figured that you were drunk and she gave you a ride. But then I went over to your apartment and Alice was calling you and there were notes for days after that… And you seemed so distantly suddenly. And then I realized that you had seemed distant for weeks. I tried not to think about it that way, but that didn't mean that there weren't rumours going on. And people started connecting all sorts of other things- the way she always flirted with you, the way you never seemed uncomfortable with it, the fact that she and Rob had that agreement-"
"You knew about that?"
"Of course I knew about it- girls talk." He flashed her some sort of awkward smile- a cross between boyish and uncomfortable- and she shifted under his gaze, uncomfortable once again. And then she sighed and looked back up at him. "I trusted you, Greg, and so I tried my hardest to not insult you by confronting you."
"And then you saw…" His words trailed off and she nodded. "That would pretty much confirm it to most people, I guess."
"I'm sorry that I didn't talk to you."
He shrugged. "I wish that you would have."
And then, suddenly, it seemed like nothing more could have been said. It was all left in the past, a reminder of things done wrong. A reminder of why they couldn't work just as much as a reminder of why they worked so perfectly.
She nearly jumped at the buzzing noise that filled the room unexpectedly. She glanced over her shoulder, just barely able to see the door down the hall. Then her eyes turned to Greg, questioning him.
"Um… Pizza. You wanna stay and have some?"
"Is it some disgusting meat lover's something?"
And that was all they needed to break the awkwardness and tension. His face cracked and a chuckle escaped his chest. He nodded as he twisted around and set his pop can on the counter, already heading toward the door. "Yes, but you can peel it off."
She watched him as he disappeared and appeared from sight, watching him again as he pulled open the door and pulled his wallet from his back pocket. A few muttered words, some cash exchanged, and then he was walking past her again, pizza box carefully held level in front of him. She took a few cautious steps forward but then stopped and wrinkled her nose at the chaos she saw littering his pizza. He glanced over his shoulder, a smile breaking out over his face at the sight of her.
"It's not going to bite you," he chuckled.
She glared at him and then moved closer. "Can you peel it off for me?"
"No."
She leaned her body against the counter, positioning herself to make sure that he could see her face. Then she contorted her lips into a pout and looked up into his eyes, "Please." He tried to hold a straight face as he looked at her, a slice of pizza held awkwardly in his hand. But after a few seconds of her continued pout, his face cracked and he started to pull off each piece of meat and set it on top of another piece.
Lisa could only handle watching him for a few moments before she started to get frustrated with his fumbling attempt to find the cheese somewhere beneath. She slapped his hands away, taking the piece into her hands as she laughed at him. He frowned over at her, his mouth open and poised to tease her. But then he decided to just watch her as she pulled off the cheese and everything on top of it.
"Oh well… if you wanted to do it the easy way."
"More like the logical way, but sure, easy works too."
She looked over at him over her pizza as she bit down and took her first bite. A smile was playing on his lips and wrinkling the corners of his eyes. It was a start. The start of what, she wasn't sure. But she had tasted her addiction once again and she had no idea how to stop herself from wanting it all again. But, most absurdly, she had realized that she didn't really want to.
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Okay… so I hope that their history makes sense (and in character for poor Lisa). Please, write some input. About the past. About the future. I'm not picky.
I think I know what's happening next chapter- looks like some more Wilson fun!
