Tony let out a small groan as he began to wake up. His head hurt. An all too familiar sensation for the past two years. At least this isn't the worst he's had.

"Hey," he heard her quietly call out. Was she still here?

He turned his head toward the voice and smiled at her.

"I'll get you some water," Pepper said once she heard him cough. "Dr. Ashford wants you to keep hydrated." She hands him the cup and makes her way back towards the desk to pack up her things. "I think-"

"Pepper..."

She froze for a second and thought about saying what was on her mind, but decided against it. "I think I should leave. It's late. I have lab in the morning."

"Pepper, please." His voice was stronger this time; attention grabbing.

She refused to meet his stare out of fear and shook her head instead.

He sighed in annoyance. He didn't understand why she stayed if she was going to leave the second he woke up.

"It's just...I have all these scenarios in my mind," Pepper quietly said. "About why you're here, and I don't know if any of them are close to the truth, but if one of them is, then I don't want to be right, Tony."

"You're smart. People only get lumbar punctures for several reasons."

"I know." She finally turned to look at him. And that was the reason why this scared her. Because, like Morgan said, she still cared about him, and she thinks she always will.

"You dress sluttier now; I like it."

She rolled her eyes at his change of topic. Of course he'd do that. So predictable.

"I don't normally dress like this."

He was disappointed at her confession. "So it's for a date then." It was the only next logical explanation.

"I model part time."

"Like for Victoria's-"

"No."

"Then you're not really a model."

"That is such a guy thing to say!"

"You could have just lied." That was when he made the mistake of trying to sit up. A sharp pain hit him like a ton of bricks and his hand instinctively goes up to his head. He takes a couple of deep breaths, as medically advised, and closed his eyes until the throbbing stopped.

"You alright?"

"Just perfect," he sarcastically retorted. The room stopped spinning and he noticed her hand on his arm, a concerned look on her face. He had to tell her. He thought about what she said. The scenarios in her mind. If she had figured it out. Maybe that's why she was still here, the reason she couldn't bring herself to walk out those doors quiet yet. She had to know the truth, no matter how terrible it is.

"I never listened to it," Tony confessed.

She was relieved. She had did it as a desperate attempt to salvage something that was gone. It was embarrassing.

He could make a lot of justifications for deleting her voicemail, but in the end it came down to one thing: he was a coward. "It wasn't easy, letting you go. It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done and all this time I still don't think I regret it. When we started dating, I didn't expect much. I even told myself I'd mess things up in a week or so because of how foreign the concept was to me. I don't understand it. Why people want relationships. Why people invest in them so much. All you do is become someone they think you should be and that person you once were disappears. Emotions aren't supposed to outweigh or overcloud logic. That's what I told myself." He shot her a sad smile as she sat down on the bed next to him. "After what happened with mom and dad, I realized I needed you. I realized if it hadn't been for you, I probably would have jumped off a bridge or something. Hurt myself. You tried to help the best way you could and all I saw it as was controlling, which I used to act out to see how far I could push you. To see how much you care about what happens to me. What gets me is every time I think about the past, I don't think I even once said thank you for sticking with me through all of that."

"I wasn't innocent in all of it. I'm at fault too."

"Yeah, but you never once set out to intentionally hurt me and I did." Neither of them wanted to mention that night; almost like the night never existed. At that point she really did think that was it. They had hit rock bottom. How many couple came back from that? "I felt something when I found out we were moving and I didn't know how to explain it until you said something that helped me. Do you remember in school, that one day I was walking you to class you had asked me if I was gonna tell you I loved you? I thought it was stupid. It couldn't be something I was feeling. I brushed it off. But when my parents told me we were leaving three months before school ended, I thought about it. Maybe I did, a little. And when I realized it, I panicked. I focused on all the ways we wouldn't work out of fear of it being true; that's why I chose to end things. Love isn't what I signed up for and even now when I think about it, it terrifies me how close I was to losing control of myself to you. I started thinking logically and came to the idea that if you were out of my life, that feeling would vanish...and it did. I felt better, but the expense was hurting you, and even if I don't regret it, at the same time you deserved me giving you the real reason."

"You wanted simple," Pepper told him, echoing his words from three years ago. "And you got that." He'd gone back to his old lifestyle. The girls. The parties. The alcohol. It was the life he chose over her. The life he had before he met her.

"Nothing happened with the girl."

"What girl?" she asked, even thought she knew exactly what he was talking about. Not a week into their breakup and there was an article about him hooking up with an aspiring model. She hated how simple it had been for Tony to move on.

He caught the flash of hurt on her face even though she had hid it well. "I would never hurt you like that." It would have been disrespectful, and at that point, she was still all he could think about.

She didn't respond and looked away instead.

"You don't believe me, he stated, not surprised, but still hurt.

"I don't have a reason not to," she told him.

"There isn't a reason to either," he retorted. "Nothing happened. You know that."

"Do I?" Pepper snapped.

"Yeah, you do!" he said with the same tone.

"This is stupid. I think it's time I left." She gets up, but the minute she took a step, he grabbed her wrist and turned her back around to him. "Let me go, Tony," she said with a detection of anger in her voice.

"You believe what you want but don't think you can just come and go as you want. You don't even know what it's been like for me the last two years. I've seen more hospital walls than I've seen lecture ones. I get headaches my entire day. I'm mad all the time. I have nothing to look forward to. A week from now I might not even remember who I am. It scares me. So don't start thinking I need you here, I don't." He laughs sardonically. "You want to know what's wrong with me? There's a tumor." He pointed at it. "Here. On the left side of my brain. That's why I have a limited range of motion on my arm. It's weakness from the dead cells that are pressed up in front of my brain and spreading down to the brainstem. That's why I'm here. So the doctor can remove it before I die from it. You can leave, Pepper. No one stopped you from fucking leaving to begin with, but once you walk out this room, stay out. Don't come back."

"I won't," she spat out. Grabbing her purse off the chair, she headed for the door. She just about reached out for the handle, but Dr. Ashford got to it first. She jumped.

"Sorry for the sudden intrusion." He gave Tony a sincere smile, chart in hand. "Looks like you're being discharged. You're going to have to keep hydrated and limit yourself to light activities only. Anything else might bring on a headache and we both don't want that. If you have numbing or if your injection site starts leaking, please call no matter what the time is. This next week is crucial, we must take every factor into consideration."

He nodded and jumps off the bed.

"This also means no driving. I assume she is taking you home."

"Right."

Pepper looked at him in disbelief.

"Alright. I'll see you on Tuesday."

The door closed on Dr. Ashford's way out and he peeled off his gown before heading into the bathroom to grab his clothing. "What are you still doing here?" he asked once he walked back into her sight.

"You lied."

"People lie all the time. You should know that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." He knew saying that would infuriate her, which was what he was counting on. There were clearly some resentment she was holding back and his job was to make those feelings boil up the surface.

"You shouldn't drive."

"You shouldn't care."

She held her ground. "It's reckless."

"And I've been anything but? Relax. I'll be fine, I always am."

He brushed past her and walked out the door. She followed and despite what she was feeling, she smiled at a passing nurse.

"Don't you have lab in the morning?"

"Tony, you just told me you have a brain tumor."

He doesn't respond; walking inside the elevator.

"Tony." There was a pleading in her voice and a lot of emotion behind it. The way she had called him, it left little doubt in his mind that this girl still cares about him.

He shouldn't had told her, but it was in the heat of the moment. Maybe deep down he wanted to let her know. "Just go. This never happened. It's the best thing for us to do."

"You mean the best thing for you," Pepper corrected.

He walked out into the parking lot and over to his car. He was about to open the door when she intervened and stopped him.

"I can't let you do this."

He glanced down at Pepper's hand on his wrist. "Don't make do something I regret. Cause this time I won't apologize for it."

"Fine."

He thought he won, but he's at a loss of words when he sees her opening the passenger side and getting in. Fine, if she wants to play it like that, then he'll play along.


He turned on the lights to his living room for the next two weeks and tossed his jacket on the sofa, Pepper following behind with a slight scoff as she entered.

"What? You don't love it?"

"It's such a bachelor pad," she retorted, looking around his living room. It wasn't her taste, but it was still, nonetheless, fashionable, very modern; very him.

He shot her a quick stare and kneeled down as his four legged friend ran out of what he assumed was the bedroom. Snickers liked to sleep on his bed whenever the opportunity presented itself. He scratched behind the ears before pushing the dog aside with a laugh once the canine licked his face. "Remember Pep? You met her when you were little."

Snicker looked at Pepper and began to bark continuously. Something he did with strangers, so that itself answer the question if he remembered her. "Hey, calm down." He walked into the kitchen and heard a couple footsteps following behind. Snickers knew his human was about to refill his food and water. He wasn't hungry, but he could eat.

"You want something to drink?"

"I'm fine," Pepper replied. She watched as the dog tried to steal some food from the bag and chuckled. She sat on the island and noticed a note next to a vase of white tulips. It was from his mom. Hi, honey. I'm sorry I couldn't stay until you got here, but I made pasta. It's in the fridge with a salad. Please eat healthier. Get some rest. I'll see you Saturday night. I love you, Mom.

"Nosy," he remarked, grabbing the note off the counter and crumbling it into a ball before throwing it into the trash. He made it.

"Did you even read it?" She asked with a hint of criticism.

"Yeah. It's been sitting here since last night." He tossed a raspberry in his mouth. "There's no need for the third degree, Pepper."

"That wasn't-"

"What you were gonna do? Yeah, right. What are you still here anyways? It's almost eleven. I remember you forcing me to leave your house when it was this late for school."

She unconsciously draws a loose strand of hair behind her ear and stumbled with her words. "You're right, I do. But I, uh, I think we or I want to talk about what happened-"

"There's nothing to talk about." His voice was cold and she expected nothing else.

"I think there is," she insisted.

"And I know there isn't," Tony bit back. "I mean, what makes you think you have the right to barge into my life demanding me to tell you what the hell is wrong with me? I don't owe you anything." He took a second and let out a deep breath. He was getting riled up again; she happened to be the unintentional target. "Just leave. I don't want to do this."

"The sudden mood swings are a side effects of the tumor, isn't it?"

"No, it's because I'm fucking tired. I'm drained. My head hurts like hell. I need sleep." He didn't understand why he was being harsh with her. He guessed it was easier than trying to be civil.

"Why are you acting like this?"

"Because it's the only way you'll listen!"

"You're mad because I stayed, but you're also mad cause you couldn't tell me to go."

"Yeah, and I see what a big mistake I made there."

"I don't understand-"

"Drop it," he interrupted with a raised voice. "You had your chance at the hospital and you blew it. End of discussion. So if you think staying here is gonna accomplish something, it's not, but be my guest. It's not my time I'm wasting." He slammed his bottle of water onto the island and walked off. He really needed some time to himself where he could relax and unwind. He wasn't going to accomplish that being in the same room as Pepper. He wasn't sure how she was going to get home, but at this point, he didn't care. He had a date with a steaming hot shower and it was going to be the best he's ever had.

"Tony, wait." He stopped dead in his tracks in his room and turned around to face her. "I'm sorry if it seems like I'm butting into your life, but it's only because I'm concerned about you. For whatever reason I know you don't think you deserve it. Look, I can admit that us breaking up was one of the worst times of my life, but it doesn't diminish the fact that I care about you. I will always care about you. I'm sure it goes both ways, doesn't it? That's why you let me stay when you could have easily asked me to go. And, yes, you could have opted for the truth instead of a lie, but I don't hate you for the choices you made when you were younger. Being scared, I understand. I know the feeling all too well. There's this saying that sometimes you go so long without love, the second you have it you don't know what to do with it."

He wanted to move, but he ignored his instincts and let Pepper come closer to him. So far everything she said was correct. He broke her heart because he'd been terrified of love...terrified because he's been let down so many times that when he finally wasn't, he wanted to get rid of it.

"Let's put everything in the past. Can we do that? Can we start over? I just want to be here for you." She wants to because she knows he's guarded. Knows there's so much frustration and anger harboring in his heart.

"You want to be there for me?" He let out a bitter laugh and closed the distance between them. "Fine. Be here for me."

She was well aware that his eyes were now focused on her lips. She should have stopped him, but she knew she didn't want to. His lips fiercely presses against hers and her brain ceased functioning. Quickly, the kiss deepens and he pressed her against the wall. He well understood this would complicate things, but he was too frustrated and angry to care.

His mouth left hers for air, but he wasn't finished. He trailed kisses down her neck, hands on her waist to pull her hips closer to his. She found herself leaning her head to the side and letting out a small moan as he sucked on her pulse. Before she knew it, his hands ripped open her coat, buttons scattering onto the bedroom floor. A familiar sensation pooled in the pit of her stomach and that is when things came to a standstill.

"Tony," she gasped, breaking the kiss they were currently sharing. She pulled away from him and saw the confusion in his brown eyes. "We shouldn't do this." He refused to back off, so she pushed him away. Her hint was received, but still he kept close, pressing his hand against the wall as a way of trapping her but also giving her a way out.

"Why not? You were practically eyeing me when you realized who I was earlier this afternoon."

"That doesn't mean it's right."

"You ever do anything spontaneously? Is that even possible with you?" He was curious as to how much Pepper's changed. From what he can see, not much.

"Is it ever possible for you to open up?"

He chose not to respond, giving her a knowing look.

"Then I guess that answered your question."

"You're right." He took several steps back and cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. This shouldn't-"

"It happening is not the problem. It is everything that comes after that is, you understand?"

"I just miss you," he softly replied.

She nodded. Hearing him say that warmed her heart, but at the same time it made her want to run out the door just that much quicker.

"You're right. I still care about you. It can be different this time."

"How? You're going to be here another two to three weeks before heading back to MIT, but I'll still be here, leaving us in the same exact situation we were in three years ago. I won't go through this again, so when you can tell me how, maybe we can talk, but right now, I can't let this go further."


What if the next chapter is completed and I'll upload it ASAP if you guys smash the comment section and give me 10 reviews? It's a fair trade, right? Besides, I know from experience you can do it. ;)