Some devil

Some angel

Has got me to the bones

You said always and forever

Now I believe you baby

You said always and forever

Is such a long and lonely time

Stacy Warner knew one thing about medicine. The beeping of the monitors in the room meant that her husband was alive. When the beeping stopped and became one long hum of sound, she knew that he would be taken from her. Standing at the window looking out into the terrifyingly dark night, Stacy wasn't thinking about her husband. The moon was not out tonight, she noted, and the stars shone more brightly in the sky than usual. While Princeton wasn't an extremely large city, stargazers were often out of luck because of the infiltration of air pollution. The stars leant a small amount of light to brighten the room slightly, but it barely made a difference. The monitors glowed green and caused the room to take on an eerie sheen. Stacy felt that, without the presence of the punishing daylight, she looked better. The lines on her face were not as obvious and the concern in her eyes did not show easily. She kept her eyes trained out the window for a few more seconds before turning around to gaze on her husband.

Tom had always been good to her, she thought, and made her way to sit by his side once again. He had taken her in and loved her. House's sarcasm left her bitter and always defensive. Tom had chipped away at her front and they lived happily together. But now, here they were again. She had come to House because she knew he was the only doctor who could possibly fix her husband. Tom had done so much for her and now she let his life lie in the hands of her former lover.

Oh, yes, Dr. House. She broke his heart. She sighed and looked at her husband's peaceful face and ran her finger along his eyebrow. House brought heartbreak onto himself. It wasn't her fault that his snide and bitter remarks gained him no friends and apparently no lovers except for that young female doctor. She had been tired of being in a negative relationship with someone. Were there good times? Of course there were. There were dinners and dancing before his leg. There were nights spent taking long walks around parks. There were many nights spent with each other, enjoying the company of another human being. But all that was before his leg. Before she grew tired of dealing with a cripple and a sarcastic man. It was before she left one night, leaving only a letter explaining that she just couldn't handle him anymore. It was hard for her, being a confident and usually self-assured woman, to admit defeat in anything she did, be it love or career. Saying she couldn't handle him, meant giving up on something.

Defeat was something she couldn't handle. When weighing her options, she realized that if she continued to live with House, she'd leave in defeat no matter what happened. And, figuring it was easier to leave with her dignity intact and on her own terms, she left with more of a draw than a defeat or victory.

To the victor goes the spoils, said William Macy—or was it Marcy? But had she had a victory over House—a clean break, dissolution of her feelings toward him—what would have been the spoils? A truly happy marriage, more focus on her work, and the ability to look on the past more happily? She didn't know what they would have been. She took her hand back from her husband's head and decided that if House was only a few turns down the hall, she needed to settle with him their relationship that had supposedly been settled five years ago. She needed to move on and she needed to help Tom get well again. But she couldn't do it when she was thinking on the life she could have had if she had made a clean break with House. She didn't want to admit the other reason that made her feel compelled to finally cut the strings that were left hanging at the end of their ripped relationship.

She had been thinking about how life could have been if she had stayed with House.