She crawled into her bed still contemplating what had just happened between her and House. The battle between her heart and her head had peaked in intensity, and each was pulling at her with equal force. She felt soon her heart would win the battle, but whatever she decided, she had to decide quickly. If she was going to be with Brian, she couldn't be around House as much as she was now, and have these random moments of passion. She couldn't cheat on Brian…anymore than she already had anyway. If she was going to try and be with House, she had to let Brian go. But who said House wanted to be with her. Yeah, he had just kissed her, but that was his MO, lead them on then leave them alone, and she knew it all too well. She turned on her back restlessly, frustrated by the dueling thoughts going on in her head. She thought about one of the last encounters she had had with him, before he started working at the hospital.
***************************************************

She had just come out of one of the exam rooms in the clinic. It was an unusually slow day, but she didn't mind helping out in the clinic, especially since her name was in the running to become the next Dean of Medicine once Dr. Lewis retired. She walked over to the nurses' station to finish filling out the chart on the patient. One of her colleagues walked up to her.

"This one's asking for you by name," Dr. Miller said holding the file out to her.

She signed her name at the bottom of the chart, closed it, and tossed it in the bin behind the desk.

"Well this'll be my last one," she said to him, as they both began to walk towards Exam room 3. "I have to go pick up the kids in a little bit. Stephanie's dad is in the hospital again, so I can't stay late tonight."

"Don't worry," he said nudging her gently with his elbow, "I'll cover for you. Maybe it'll help me get on your good side once you become Dean."

She blushed a little, "I haven't gotten the job yet."

"Well when you do, maybe I can take you and the girls out to celebrate," he said, in his flirty tone.

"We'll see," she said giving him a smile.

"How are they anyway?" he asked her again.

"The kids are fine," she said, "except for the usual yelling and fighting."

"Well tell them I said hello," the doctor said about to walk away, "and good luck with that one, he's a little...just call me if you need any help."

"Great," she said to herself, "doesn't look like I'm going to get out of here anytime soon."

She opened the file, and without looking at the name opened the door to the room.

"Hi, I'm Dr…" she froze when she looked up and saw the man sitting on the exam table with a familiar brown haired woman standing next to him. She just stared at him, her mouth open but she was too shocked to let the rest of her words come out. Her heart felt like it was about to beat out of her chest, and her stomach felt like it was full of butterflies. So many conflicting feelings came rushing back to her, good and bad, love and hate, sadness and anger. "I'm sorry," she started again looking from the man to the woman then back again. "I don't think I should handle this case," she said turning to leave out of the room. "I'll go get…"

"No, Lisa please," the man said hopping off of the table, obviously in pain. He had grabbed her arm causing her to stop and look at him. The other woman in the room was by his side quickly to give him the physical support to stand if he needed it. "I need you," he continued. "I need your help. These idiots can't figure out what's wrong with me. My leg's been hurting me like hell for the past three days, and nobody can come up with a reasonable explanation as to why. I can't take it any more, I need you to figure out what's wrong with me."

"We drove all the way here and passed three hospitals on the way," the other woman started. "He said that he had to come to this hospital, he wanted you as his doctor. He's been in serious pain for the last few days and I honestly don't know what to do anymore."

"Lisa please," he said, calling her attention back to him. She stared into his eyes for a moment trying to sort out what she should do. A part of her was telling her to run like hell and get as far away from him as she could, another part telling her she couldn't bare to leave him in pain like this without doing everything she could to help him, and yet another part, the professional part, telling her to put all the personal baggage aside and do her job…and that's what she did.

"Help me get him back to the table," she told the other woman.

0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

They were about to get him prepped for surgery, and she was on her way to his room to check up on him, but stopped when she saw him and the woman talking. The same woman who's picture she had saw the night she had last talked to or seen of him, the woman she had met only a couple of times prior to that night. She watched them for a while, the way they interacted with each other, the way he talked to her, the way he looked at her. She was in love with him…and he was in love with her. She couldn't stand the sight of him looking at another woman like that, the way he used to look at her. It was all too much for her, she felt a few tears coming to her eyes and was about to turn and leave when his blue eyes locked onto hers. This made her fight harder to successfully fight the tears back. The weak smile that he had managed through the pain faded when he saw her. The other woman looked her way after seeing the look on his face.

"Stacy, can you give us a minute," he said. The woman kissed him on the lips and smiled at Lisa as she exited out of the room.

"Hey," he said after a few moments of awkward silence.

"Hey," she replied quietly walking closer to his bed. She stopped when she reached the foot of his bed.

"I know what you're thinking and it's not like that, well it wasn't" he said, trying to force a smile through the pain.

She just looked at him, with a serious face.

"I didn't lie to you," he told her. "When I first moved in with her, we were just friends. I needed somewhere to stay."

"What about now?" she asked hesitantly and cursed herself as soon as the words passed her lips. She didn't want him to know that she cared about what was going on between the two of them.

"Now?" he said reluctantly. "We were real good friends back during my residency. Being under the same roof…things kinda got a little serious. We started dating, and I... just never moved out. "

She looked down to the floor, and after a few moments, "Are you in love with her?"

He looked away, not wanting to answer, because he knew the answer wasn't the one she wanted to hear. So he just sucked it up and said it. "Yes."

He saw her close her eyes and her shoulders sunk a little. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw a tear sliding down her cheek. "Lisa that doesn't me…," he was cut off by one of the nurses coming into the room.

"Ready Dr. House?" she asked, walking over to the bed.
He didn't answer, he just watched as Lisa turned her back and wiped away her tears before walking out of the room.
**********************************

'What are you doing Lisa?' the logical side of her said. 'You are setting yourself up for a fall again... But you love him.' She took a deep breath giving into the fact that she really wasn't going to get too much sleep that night.
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

House was back at his apartment going through the same thing. He knew she still had feelings for him and the fact that she had kissed back proved it. The fact that she had kissed back, knowing she was engaged to Brian told him that whatever she felt for him was stronger than whatever she felt for her fiancé. He raised his hand up to inspect the silver object he was toying with his fingers. He didn't want to hurt her again, but with the recent developments he knew he was hurting her by the simple act of pushing her away. He knew no matter what he would always love her. And no matter what he said or did she would always love him. He inspected the ring one more time, and thought back to how she had been there for him after the surgery.
************************************************************

He threw the glass at the wall, shattering it, after swallowing the pill that he knew would offer him no relief to the pain he was feeling. He laid back on the bed and clenched his teeth as another pain shot through his leg. Stacy had left, and he had nobody else to call, well nobody he was willing to call anyway. He would have called Wilson, but he didn't want anyone taking pity on him. He could have called her, but he knew she felt guilty, and if there was anything he wanted less than pity, it was guilty pity. He felt he didn't deserve her help anyway, no matter what she felt she had did to him and his leg. He had hurt her enough and took this as his consequence for hurting her so badly. He still remembered the look on her face when he had told her that he was in love with Stacy, but he couldn't lie to her. He also wanted to tell her that he still loved her, but he didn't get the chance. He loved them both. He and Stacy had been attracted to each other since they had first met, but he was also attracted to Lisa. He could have had a relationship with either of the women if he'd wanted to. He hadn't made any commitments to either at the time, but he had to follow his heart. He had chosen Lisa over Stacy, he loved her more, he fell in love with her more easily. He knew that it didn't seem that way from where she was standing. He knew she saw it as him choosing Stacy over her and the girls, but that wasn't true. He didn't want to hurt Stacy either, because he did love her. But a relationship with her wouldn't leave any collateral damage when he'd eventually mess it up and start being an ass…there would be no children involved.

The sound of someone knocking at the front door woke him from his thoughts. He didn't bother moving, he hoped they would go away soon. His hopes went unanswered. The knocking just grew louder and more persistent. 'Don't they know I'm a cripple now,' he said to himself, grabbing the cane from the side of his bed. He grimaced with every step as he slowly made his way down the hall.

"I'm coming," he barked as he got closer to the door. This made whoever was on the other side of the door stop knocking immediately.
He unlocked the door and took the chain off. He was speechless when his eyes met with the steel blues staring back at him. He just stared at her with a confused look, probably making her uncomfortable, because she looked away.

"Can I come in?" she said quietly, looking back up at him.

He just moved to the side, allowing her to enter. Another sharp pain shooting through his leg reminded him of why she was there. He bent over a little and rubbed his leg letting the pain register on his face. She was by his side instantly, holding on to his arm.

"Are you okay?" she asked with concern in her voice.

"No. I'm not okay," he unintentionally yelled at her. "I'm in pain. And those god damned pills those moron doctors prescribed for me aren't doing anything."

"I'm sorry, I wasn't there when they wrote the prescription. I had to go get the gir…" she caught herself mid-sentence, "I had to go take care of something. But," she continued walking over to her purse she had sat down on the sofa along with her coat and another bag. "I brought you this."
She pulled out a bottle of pills.

"What are those?" He questioned.

"Vicodin," she told him. "Wilson and I talked about it, and we think they will help relieve the pain."

"Great," he said sarcastically. "Now he's going to want to come over here. We can all have one big pity party on my account."

"Let me get you some water," she said ignoring his last statement.
She returned from the kitchen and walked over to the couch where he had currently taken up residence. She handed the glass of water to him, and he just glared up at her.

"Thanks," he said snarkily, and took the glass from her,"but I don't need your pity."

"There is a difference between pity and concern, you know," she told him as she sat on the arm of the chair next to the sofa.

She watched as he took one of the pills from the bottle and popped it into his mouth. He washed it down with the water and looked at her ungratefully.

"There, you did your good deed for the day," he told her standing up to try and make it back to his bedroom. "Now you can go and let your conscious be free."

He tried to walk back to the bedroom, but one more pain shot through his leg. Again, she was quickly to his side.

"It'll take a few minutes for the pill to kick in," she said helping him into the bed room. After helping him sit on the bed, she looked around the room and saw how much of a mess it was.

"What the hell have you been doing in here?" she asked him, picking up the largest piece of the broken glass that he had broken before she had knocked on the door

"I'm sorry," he said. "I haven't got around to cleaning up. I just had surgery to get some of my leg muscles removed…At least that's what I hear anyway…I don't know, I was completely unconscious when everything happened."

"Alright I get," she told him. "I'm sorry, I should've tried harder to stop her, but there was nothing I could do…for god's sakes. What was I supposed to do, tie her up and put her in a closet until your pain stopped?"

"Yes Lisa," he yelled. "That's exactly what you were supposed to do. You're a doctor, she's a lawyer…there's a reason I came to you, and didn't just stay home and let her take care of me until it was all better."

"Well you gave her the rights to make all of the decisions. I didn't really have a say in the matter. What was the reason for making her your medical proxy?" she asked him. He just looked away from her. He knew not to take the question at face value.

She decided not to push the conversation any further, and left the room. She came back with a broom, and cleaned up the glass fragments that were scattered about the floor.

"Have you eaten?" she asked breaking the silence that had consumed the apartment, since their little yelling contest had ended.

"Not hungry," he said, simply.

"Well you have to eat something," she said walking out of the room.

She went into the fridge and saw that it was full of fresh food.
'At least she's not completely cold hearted,' she thought to herself, after seeing Stacy had stocked the fridge before she left. She pulled out a few items and started to make dinner. She couldn't believe that she had left him. Wilson had called and told her what had happened. He was away at a conference so he couldn't come to check on him. She knew he was alone and still in pain, physically and emotionally. She had went home after she had gotten off from work, packed an overnight bag, and came to his apartment.

Just as the food was finishing, he came hobbling into the kitchen sulkily. She saw that his limp had gotten a little better and she hadn't heard anymore crashes coming from the bedroom so she assumed the medicine had a better affect on him than the other pills. They must have really worked because, he filled a glass with water and popped another one.

"You should eat something," she said seriously.

"Haven't I been through enough," he told her jokingly. "Now I have to eat your cooking too."

She smiled and began fixing him a plate of food as he sat down to the table. She sat across from him watching him, as if she was planning on force feeding him if he didn't eat. He raised the fork to his mouth, but stopped before he let the food pass his lips.

He eyed her curiously, "Did you put poison in this?"

She rolled her eyes. "Why do you think I would try to poison you?"

"Well I don't see you eating," he told her. "Or is it that you can't stomach your own coo…"

"If I wanted to poison you, I would have laced the pills," she told him.

"So you have thought about it?" he asked.

"No, but I will be if you don't shut up and eat," she told him.

He started to devour the food on his plate, being able to think about something other than pain for the first time in the last few months. She really wasn't a bad cook, he just liked teasing her. She got up and packed the rest of the food in containers, put them in the refrigerator and waited for him to finish eating. When he was done, she took his plate and went over to the sink to wash it.

"Thanks," he said getting up to leave the kitchen. "You can show yourself out."

"I'm staying the weekend, until Wilson gets back," she said not turning away from the sink.

"I don't need a twenty four hour baby si…,"

"I'm staying," she told him firmly, closing the subject.

They both knew that he wasn't going to kick her out, so if she were to leave, it would have to be on her own accord.

"Don't you have to go home and uhh…," he said, not finishing the statement. He didn't think he could let it pass his lips.

"They're spending the weekend with Stephanie," she told him, her back still turned to him.

He didn't say anything else, as he turned around and returned to his bedroom.
***********************************************************

He sighed, as he rolled over and sat the ring on the nightstand, next to his alarm clock. He knew what he wanted, what he needed, and he wouldn't try to fight it anymore. That's not to say that he was going to go out and just grab it, but he wasn't going to push her away anymore. It was still her decision. If she chose Brian, he would just have to try to live with that. If she chose him, even better, he could definitely live with that.