Through the shouting, crying, and flashing lights, two hospital beds were wheeled into the hospital.

Chase just rubbed his forehead as he stared at the mutilated body of the woman before him. She would probably make it, she did lose a lot of blood, more than enough to make her weak, but not kill her, he hoped. The second mangled mass of gauze was pushed into the room. Blood flowed through the cottony layers of the bandaging down though the sheets. Chase could not be so sure of her safety, but then again he couldn't even see her face, for that too was wrapped in gauze.

"House, you have a case," Cuddy announced throwing a stack of folders on the table in the hospital cafeteria. "Two arguing neighbors in a car crash. Both women in critical condition."

"Seeing as how they are in the ICU, shouldn't we send Chase? The intensivist?" Cuddy was wearing another low-cut top, so House was too distracted to really care about the case. "Is that really appropriate for work?"

"My face is up here. Look at it and read my lips. 'Take the case.' The one woman will only let you take care of her. She says she knows you."

"If you wanted to have lunch with Wilson by yourself, tell me, you don't have to play these games." He bought Wilson lunch today, and they were enjoying an empty cafeteria, for once. "Besides, a lot of women know me. I'm just a pimp like that."

"What woman have you had recently, that didn't request you pay a tip?" This was the one day Wilson could enjoy his lunch without getting a patient call, and he had to get rid of one or both of them if he was going to take pleasure in it. "And since when do you use words like 'pimp'?"

Wilson was right, for once, House hadn't had a girlfriend in a long while. And the women he did have a relationship with still hated him. Breaking up relationships was not his forte. He was almost afraid of the patient that came in, even though he didn't yet learn who it was.

"I really don't care how afraid of her you are." Cuddy didn't care about House's feelings at all. Did he have feelings? "You have to take the case or she'll die. She won't let ANYONE else care for more than changing her bandages which won't save her life."

"Fine. I'll go, but I won't like it!" House sighed. He wasn't a people person. Especially if they were people he knew.

The glass door slid open dramatically as House entered the ICU. The nurse sighed just as dramatically at his antics as she slowly unwrapped the gauze from the injured woman's face.

"Look I may be good in bed, but that doesn't mean I'm a good doctor," he announced to the woman laying in the hospital bed staring at him. "Who are you anyway? I'm so popular with the ladies; I just can't remember them all."

"I'm Liz…but, I … umm… didn't ask for you. Umm. She did." Liz gestured to the bandaged mass. This man scared her; Liz had no clue why her neighbor would want to be cared for by this doctor.

"Popular with the ladies? I thought you were a doctor not a pimp." A familiar set of brown eyes poking through the gauze tore open a hole in his heart, one that hadn't been opened in a long time.

House stared incredulously. He whispered only one word.

"Stacie?"