Disclaimer: Fox owns House, Md. and all of its characters. Sera and anyone else you don't recognize belong to me!

Author's note: I did some research on martial arts, but I'm sure I got something wrong, so apologies for any inaccuracies!

CHAPTER 6

Sera rolled over in her bed the next morning and blinked at the sun streaming through the window. She stretched a nice long stretch that would have put any cat to shame and threw her legs over the side of the bed, hopping out. She went to the bathroom to wash her face, brush her teeth, and soak her contact lenses, which were irritating her eyes, and then went to the kitchen to start the coffee. She smiled, seeing her perfectly clean kitchen. She was glad Robert followed through with his promise to clean. She felt guilty about falling asleep on him while watching "Gladiator", but she had already seen the movie about 3 times, so it was rather boring to her. She frowned. If Robert was going to be a regular visitor, she would have to give him the security code so he could set it when he left. She smiled again. It had been a long time since she had trusted anyone enough to even consider giving them her security code.

Sera measured out the coffee and turned the pot on to brew. She then opened the refrigerator to see what she could scrounge up for breakfast. She gasped in shock when she felt arms come around her waist. She instantly reacted, dropping into an au batido move, which loosened the grip on her waist. She then turned into a kick on the person's outside thigh, causing him (the grunt sounded masculine) to drop to the ground. She then jumped directly on him , and applied an Eagle claw strike on the baroreceptor in the carotid artery. She looked into the green/gray eyes, which started to flutter. Sera gasped and immediately released the pressure point.

"Robert….Robert! Come on, wake up!" Robert felt hands gently patting his cheek as the darkness that had started to overtake him receded. He blinked slowly and looked into the gray eyes watching him anxiously. His leg felt like it was on fire and his head was beginning to hurt. He blinked again and sat up, feeling like his brain was slightly fuzzy. "Gray?", he said questioningly. He heard a gasp and Sera turned away from him and started to get up. He quickly grabbed her arm and pulled her back down.

Sera briefly considered finishing what she started and rendering him unconscious. Or just getting loose from his grip, which she could easily do, and running to the bathroom. 'Or you could stop letting a psychopath control your life', said the voice inside her head that she had managed to ignore for the past 5 years. Sera sat next to Robert and helped him sit up. He looked at her eyes, tilting his head in utter confusion.

"Your eyes are beautiful. Why would you wear those dark brown contacts to hide them?" Sera laughed at him. "Is that really the main question you want to ask me right now?"

Robert realized that he had been knocked on his butt and almost knocked unconscious by a woman who was 10 inches shorter and about 70 pounds lighter than he was. He glared at her. "Well, now that you mention it, what the hell was that? What did you do to my leg? And how did you almost make me lose consciousness?"

Sera began to massage the point on his outer thigh where she kicked him. "Well, I didn't know you were still here. All I knew was someone grabbed me from behind. I didn't know it was you, although subconsciously I must have known it was a possibility."

Robert sighed in relief as the pain diminished in his leg and the feeling started to return. "Why do you say that?"

Sera finished her massage and stood up fluidly, pulling his arm to bring him up with her. He had noticed her grace before, but when she did that cartwheel thingy to get out of his grip, she was like mercury in motion. Smooth and quick. She responded to his question.

"Well, normally, if I felt like I was being attacked, I would have grabbed the knife from the butcher block there", she gestured toward the set of knives on the counter next to the refrigerator. "Or, I could have knocked you out with a strike to the occipital lobe. Quicker than the carotid artery, but more dangerous to you since it shakes your brain up. Or, I could have used a more painful pressure point strike that you would still be feeling now. Or, I could have…"

"Yeah, I get it. There are about a thousand ways you could have kicked my ss. Great. My girlfriend is tougher than I am." Robert walked around in a circle, making sure his leg was in good working condition. He was only slightly embarrassed at what had happened. From what he had seen, there are very few people that would have done any better than he had. He still had a ton of questions, though.

"Sera…" Robert began but she held up her hand. "Look, I know you have a lot of questions. Some of them I can answer and some I can't. But I'm starving and I haven't had my coffee yet. Let me get some breakfast going while you go wash up. I'm assuming you're still here because of the bottle of wine we polished off during The Quick and The Dead?"

Robert nodded. "After I took you to bed, I felt so tired that I didn't think it was a good idea to drive home. Plus, I wasn't sure if the wine was affecting me too much to drive. So, I sacked out in the spare bedroom. I didn't think you'd mind. Although if I had known I would be attacked in the morning, I might have taken my chances driving home."

Sera grinned at him and gave him a hug and kiss on the cheek. "Sorry about that, mate! Go get cleaned up and I'll whip us up a couple of omelets to make up for my bad behavior this morning. Deal?"

"Deal."

Sera took a sip of juice and began her story. "When I was younger, I was a bit overweight. I didn't like to exercise and I wasn't the healthiest eater in the world. So when I had to take a physical fitness class in my first year of college, I chose self-defense because at least it seemed like useful exercise. As it turned out, our instructor integrated a lot of karate into the self-defense techniques. He was a hachidan, or 8th degree black belt. After the class was over, I wanted to learn more. I talked to the instructor and he signed me up for his class off-campus. I worked with him all throughout my college career, which lasted a long time. I have numerous degrees in…many things." Sera still wasn't ready to share everything with Robert.

"As I mentioned last night, I was a lot younger than anyone else at the college. I was one of those child prodigies who breeze through school and go to college when they're 14. I actually already had some college credits under my belt when I officially started at Michigan. I was 2 credits short of being a sophomore, actually."

Sera smirked at Robert's look of shock. "Please don't tell anyone. Because of my so-called genius IQ and my college success, I was something of a freak. Lisa was my mentor in college. She was a junior and the only person who treated me like a person and not a machine or an adult. She didn't patronize me or treat me like a child, but around her I could be my age. She was like the big sister I never had. Our relationship is still somewhat sisterly, but as I got older, we became best friends. I don't know what I would have done without her. I think I'm as relatively normal as I am because of her."

Robert took her hand and squeezed it. "Well, after watching you totally mess up my sudoku puzzles and annihilate the crosswords, I would never guess you were a genius, so I don't think you have to worry about anyone figuring it out." Sera did the sums in her head and decided that his comment added up to an insult, so she punched him in the shoulder and laughed when he pouted. "Do you want to hear the rest of this or not? I'd rather get it all out of my system now so we don't have to discuss it anymore." Robert told her to go on.

"I spent a lot of time with Lisa, but obviously she had her own life and, because of my age, there were many things I couldn't do. So I used martial arts as a way to keep busy. School was ridiculously easy and no challenge to me at all, so I challenged myself physically. I pushed myself to master karate. My sensei was very strict and pushed me hard as well. Because of my dedication, I progressed faster than usual. And apparently, I had some natural athletic ability that came in handy. When I graduated and left school, he gave me the name of a friend of his who lived near me that could keep teaching me."

Sera paused to take a bite of her omelet. Robert was watching her while he was eating, looking thoughtful. He finished chewing and asked her, "So what level did you get to?" Sera looked down. "It doesn't really matter." Robert kept looking at her until she sighed and answered, "I achieved the rank of sichidan, which is a 7th degree black belt. I've actually surpassed that, but I haven't been officially ranked since I began studying different martial arts disciplines."

Robert nodded at her to continue and she did after nibbling some bacon and drinking her juice. "Well, I became addicted to martial arts the way some people become addicted to running or working out. I lost so much weight and learned to eat healthier, except for succumbing to the occasional bacon craving." Sera held up her bacon and popped the last piece in her mouth.

Robert leered at her playfully. "Well, from where I'm standing, the bacon looks good on you!" His eyes took her in from head to toe. She was definitely curvy, but her tummy was flat (and taut!) and her arms were well-toned. He also couldn't help but notice that her legs looked very strong, but still with feminine softness to them. He tried to shake the memory of her straddling him before nearly putting his lights out. Her legs had been gripping him tightly then…

"Hello? Earth to Robert!" Robert blinked a couple of times and focused his attention on Sera, who was looking at him with amusement. Knowing her, she knew exactly what had been going through his mind and his traitorous face started to heat up again. Sera laughed at him. Robert stared at her, mesmerized by her eyes. 'Maybe this is why she wore contact lenses – to keep men from staring at her stupidly, like I'm probably doing', he thought, trying hard to focus on what she was saying.

"Do you want to move this discussion into the living room? The rest is not exactly pleasant for me and I'd rather be comfortable. You can bring your coffee, if you want." They both got up with their cups and went into the living room, where Sera curled up in the sofa like a cat. Robert nudged her up a bit and slid in behind her, so she was partially lounging on him.

"Well, I got a job in my chosen field and worked pretty hard. I rose through the ranks and became head of my department. I was fairly well known for the work that I did." Sera reached back and put her hand on Robert's mouth, shushing the question that he was about to ask. "I'm not ready to share that yet, if you don't mind." Robert nodded and she continued.

"During this time, I continued with martial arts training. I became interested in studying different areas of martial arts. I studied Hap Ki Do, Qin Na, and Capoeira. I used the last two on you this morning. Qin Na involves pressure points, which is how I was able to make you black out and kick you in the exact right way to make you lose power in your leg."

"Almost black out." Robert felt that it was very important to make this distinction. Sera smiled at him and conceded his point. Robert asked her, "What was that cartwheel thing you did before you kicked me?"

"Oh, that? It was a cartwheel." When Sera tilted her head back to look at him, she saw Robert looking at her balefully. She laughed again. "Ok, ok, it was an evasive cartwheel, a Capoeira technique called Au Batido. Basically, you use the cartwheel to evade, as I did to get away from your hands, then you either block, if being attacked, or you attack with a kick if the opportunity presents itself. Do you really want a whole martial arts lesson, because I could go on forever about it?"

Robert shook his head. "No, just get to the part where you feel the need to have a state of the art security system, hide your identity, and keep secrets."

Sera bit her lip. He was way more intuitive than anyone gave him credit for. She sat for a minute, chewing on her lip, trying to decide how much to tell him. Robert pushed her up gently, got off of the sofa, and got on one knee in front of her. Sera looked at him with a wary smile. "You aren't about to propose, are you?" He looked at her with such intensity it momentarily took her breath away. His next words hit her like a bucket of ice water. "How could I propose to someone who doesn't trust me enough to tell me the truth? Someone who won't even tell me who she really is."

Robert stood up and turned to leave. Sera scrambled off of the sofa. "Robert, you DO know me. You know who I really am." Robert looked back at her and said coldly, "Do I?" He picked up his keys from the table, punched the numbers he watched her enter the night before into her alarm system to disable it, and left. Sera stared after him, bemused that he had remembered the code and sad that he left the way he did. She sighed, went to the alarm box to reset it, then went to shower and get dressed.