I really do have to start winding this story towards the end; so, sorry, but Flora has got to go – in a manner of speaking. I will just follow my original plan – more or less – and see if I can end this in 50 or so chapters. I have all sorts of four-letter-word kind of things to attend to like LIFE and WORK! But thank you for the reviews :)

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"Hi, Greg," Stacy said as she moved closer.

"Hi, Stacy," House responded a little breathlessly. Five years was a long time and a lot of memories and even though there had been a closure of sorts the last time they had spent time together Stacy still affected him when she appeared without warning.

"I understand one of your patients needs help," Stacy went on.

"Not my patient," House denied. "Mrs. Simon is Chase's patient. But she sure could use a lawyer."

"A good thing then, that I am one," Stacy pointed out. "Hello Chase, Foreman, Allison... I see you have a new member in your staff ... Hi, I'm Stacy."

"Soo Park," Soo said in her turn.

"Soo is just hanging around for a few days," House clarified – though not very clearly. "Stacy used to live with me a few years back, before she got married to someone else."

"I see," Soo's voice turned icy when she realised that Stacy was the "loved one" who had had House's medical proxy at the time of his infarction.

"Burr," House went. "That was an icy blast from the Orient!"

"Greg? You haven't ... I mean she is a medical student," Stacy was puzzled.

"No, it's not that, though the rumours are running amok," House denied. "Soo just has some strong opinions about medical proxies."

"She resents me for having saved your life?" Stacy huffed.

"Who doesn't," Chase inserted under his breath.

"I just think you misused your power, but it really is none of my business," Soo downplayed.

"It's easy to say when you are not the one who had to make the call," Stacy stated.

The other people in the room turned to Soo expecting her answer. They almost held their breaths.

"Perhaps," Soo said enigmatically. "But I was not brought up to go for the easy answer. Simple, maybe, since often simple is also the right answer. But not easy. You chose easy. You knew what his choice was, what he wanted, all you had to do was simply have his back while he was unconscious. But you chose easy, knowing that once you chose that you would not be around for long to face the consequences."

"You know nothing about it!" Stacy insisted. "It was the toughest choice I ever had to make."

"And you chose wrong," Soo said simply. "But that is just my opinion. I'm sorry; this is really not a conversation I should be having." She turned away and got some coffee for herself.

"Greg!" Stacy turned to House for support.

"She is entitled to her opinion," House shrugged. "But I'm sure you want to meet your client. Chase?"

"Yeah, I'm on it," Chase got ready to escort Stacy to Mrs. Simon. "Just follow me."

"Ok," Stacy said. "See you later Greg."

"I expect so," House responded.

-----------------------------

Stacy was quiet on their way to Mrs. Simon and Chase didn't see any reason to make conversation either. Just before they reached Mrs. Simon's room Stacy did ask one question.

"What was House like after I left the last time?"

"Pain in the ass," Chase said. "Just as always."

"That is all?" Stacy tried again.

"I don't spend my time analysing House," Chase pointed out. "To me he is either manageable or impossible. If he is impossible I don't analyse the degrees of it."

"Fair enough, I suppose," Stacy had to concede as they enterer Mrs. Simon's room.

"Hello, Mrs. Simon," Chase said as they entered the room. "I brought your lawyer with me. This is Stacy Warner."

"Goodness, you were fast!" Flora exclaimed.

"I was in the neighbourhood so when Candice called I was able to come over straight away," Stacy told her. "Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise," Flora said. "So do you think you can help me?"

"I think so," Stacy nodded. "I will try to get a general picture of what kind of legal assistance you need – besides the divorce as well, and then I can make my recommendations. My office has an excellent divorce lawyer so I think that is covered, but there are other things we need to think about."

"Like my health and how that might affect my abilities to make my own decisions," Flora agreed.

"Yes, that is one thing," Stacy stated. "I'm not quite sure what it is you have and how it might affect you. Can you fill me in?"

"I don't really know," Flora said. "I think it would be better if Dr. Chase explains it."

"We are not yet hundred percent sure that we have the right diagnosis, but everything so far points to you having Fibromyalgia." Chase explained. "The main problems are pain and fatigue. The fatigue is both physical and mental and that can make you occasionally unable to make your own decisions. The physical pain may be bad enough to cripple you and thus prevent you from physically taking care of your own affairs. So far the fatigue has not been a big problem, but we really have no way of anticipating how this syndrome will affect you in the long run. There are things we can do, drugs we can give you, nutrition and other recommendations that you can follow, but there is really no way to make this go away. The good news is that Fibromyalgia is not a progressive disease. This will not kill you, nor will it damage your organs in any permanent way. However, the bad news is that this is a chronic condition and I can give you no guarantee that it will get any better with time, though there is some hope."

"You are saying that on occasion she may need to give a power of attorney to someone in order to look after her best interest?" Stacy asked.

"Yes, I think that might be necessary," Chase answered. "Fibromyalgia is aggravated by stress and I cannot imagine that divorce could be anything but stressful. My recommendation is to make very clear what you want before you start the proceedings and then leave it in the hands of your lawyer. And Stacy, so that you know the sort of husband you are dealing with, Mr. Simon thinks his wife is an addict and he refused to meet her medical expenses."

"Just like that?" Stacy was surprised.

"Yep," Chase confirmed. "The moment I refused to discharge Mrs. Simon, he told me that he was not paying for her stay. He did not ask what I thought was wrong with his wife."

"That certainly sounds like something that we can use," Stacy mused.

"Anyway, if you have more questions about Fibromyalgia, just page me," Chase said. "Otherwise I'm leaving you to talk."

"Thank you Dr. Chase," Flora said. "You have no idea how important it has been for me to find someone who actually takes my symptoms seriously and listens to what I have to say."

"Mrs. Simon," Chase turned to tell her the truth. "I hope that I would have listened to you anyway, but the reason I took your case, was because my boss, Dr. House, took interest in you. He was at the clinic when you arrived and he saw that you were in pain. He is a curious man and he wanted to know why, so he told me to find out. I'm glad that he did take you seriously and I will do my best to take good care of you, but I have to tell you that it was Dr. House who found you, so to speak."

"Thank you for your honesty," Flora nodded. "I don't often meet people who are honest, it is quite refreshing. Please thank Dr. House for me, but thank him also for assigning you to my case. I think he made a very good choice there."

"Thank you, Mrs. Simon, I will tell Dr. House," Chase said and then he left.

"Right then, Mrs. Simon, let us get down to the nitty-gritty of what you need and want," Stacy suggested as they were left alone.

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About two hours later Stacy was sitting in Cuddy's office drinking coffee with Cuddy.

"I think Mrs. Simon will be ok," Stacy told her friend. "The firm that is managing her inheritance is a reputable one and will absolutely take her side on this, even though they are also the lawyers to the business and have thus had a lot of dealings with Mr. Simon as well. The best part is that the man now in charge of Mrs. Simon's affairs is an old friend of hers, they went to school together."

"That sounds good," Cuddy sighed. "I'm beginning to think that maybe House didn't land us all in hot water with his insolence to Mr. Simon."

"From what I was able to find out from Mrs. Simon it is quite likely that Mr. Simon will himself be in very hot water very soon!" Stacy stated.

"So, did you see House? Or did you go straight to your client?" Cuddy asked.

"I saw House," Stacy admitted. "And the youngest member of his team, too. She wasn't too thrilled with me."

"Youngest member?" Cuddy was puzzled for a moment. "Oh, you mean Soo! Why didn't she like you?"

"According to Greg, she disapproves of my actions as Greg's medical proxy," Stacy huffed. "Like she knew anything about it."

"Actually she may be the one person in this hospital who does," Cuddy had to reveal.

"What do you mean?" Stacy asked.

"She has her father's medical proxy," Cuddy said. "House is treating him."

"Oh, I see," Stacy mused. "In that case she would have some idea, even if not from precisely a similar situation. What is House treating her father for?"

"Infarction," Cuddy said carefully. "Mr. Park was misdiagnosed in Princeton General and when he was finally transferred here he had had a blockage in his thigh for four days."

"What?" Stacy could hardly believe her ears. "Are you telling me that Mr. Park is an almost exact repetition of what happened to Greg?"

"Yes," Cuddy said. "The difference is that House is the doctor and he is following the patient's wishes. Mr. Park refused amputation or surgery. House is showing me how I ought to have treated his case. He is following Mr. Park's wishes exactly. And Soo is backing him one hundred percent. Even after Mr. Park went into a cardiac arrest and his wife, Soo's mother, demanded that we do the surgery, Soo refused to authorise it. Mr. Park is now in coma and they are bringing him out of it tomorrow. From what we can tell from the tests the treatment has been successful. The only question mark is will he have chronic pain or not."

"My God!" Stacy stared at Cuddy in shock. "You mean we were wrong?"

"Difficult to say," Cuddy said. "There are still things that can go wrong and if Mr. Park ends up suffering from chronic pain the end result may be pretty much the same. But I fear that we were wrong, though we did act with the best of intentions."

"He will resent us all over again after this," Stacy stated.

"I'm not so sure he has ever forgiven us in the first place," Cuddy shrugged. "His parents are here, you know. His mother has MG and Foreman is her doctor for now, until they find someone closer to their home. House has had trouble with his leg for some time now, and as you know he does not like people telling him what to do about it. His father ended up pushing him a little too far and House ended up telling him off. I overheard it."

"What did he say?" Stacy asked.

"He said that if it wasn't for us, he could be dead. And that he would much rather be that, than what he is now. He blamed us for not having had the guts to respect his wishes, for having decided for him what kind of life he was going to have. He pretty much implied that we did it to him out of spite, because we wanted our pound of flesh from him." Cuddy recited painfully.

"Do you think he really meant it?" Stacy wondered. "He can say things he doesn't really mean when he is in pain and when he is pushed."

"I don't know," Cuddy had to say. "But I fear he did mean it."

"Was he right?" Stacy asked. "Did we do it for some other reason than what we thought at the time? Did we want to teach him a lesson, tell him not to be so stubborn? That life can be worth living even if you are not physically whole?"

"If those were our reasons," Cuddy sighed. "We failed. He is now showing us that we should have let him be stubborn and I have watched him these years to live the life we gave him, and frankly, I would rather be dead."

"But we cannot change it now," Stacy whispered. "We did what we did with the best of intentions, or so we thought at least."

"Well, you know what they say of good intentions," Cuddy said.

"Yeah, road to Hell," Stacy acknowledged. "And it seems we may have to travel it. I'll be staying around for a couple of days to help Mrs. Simon – Mark is away till Christmas Eve, so I have the time. I will just have to find for myself what Greg's feelings are about all this."

"Good luck in finding out," Cuddy gave a small laugh. "He has got even harder to understand than he was ever before. He won't let you in."

"If not, then I will just have to live with it," Stacy said. "I will let you know where I'm staying as soon as I have booked my room. Thanks for the coffee, Lisa."