AN: What, another? This is probably a very bad plan. One chapter with this strange girl is mysterious. Two is getting too close to Mary-Sue for my own comfort. Eh. This is meant mostly for my own practice—I guess if I put House into weird positions and still try to write him in-character, I'll get better at it in general. Anyway, the girl is back.

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"Are you ever actually going to give me back my coat?" She stood there again, leaning against the door as always and examining the too-big sleeves of his leather jacket as it hung on her small frame. House shook his head and turned back to the couch, as always, and called over his shoulder. "You know, I wear that so when I fall off my motorcycle, I don't, you know, die."

"You'll still die," she answered simply, sinking into a seat next to him. "There'll just be less skin smeared all over the pavement." A beat, then, "Are you really worried about it?"

No, not really. It was just something he said. Maybe it was to get his damn coat back—it was his, goddammit, and he didn't buy it for some strange girl to wear all the time. It didn't even look that good on her. She was swimming in it—it covered too much of her or something. "If I say yes, will you give it back to me?"

A half-smile flickered across her face, and she slipped his coat over her shoulders, putting it in his lap as she'd done before. This meant nothing, really, but maybe this time he could keep it. Ever since that first night, she'd come two, three times a month—almost always on his roughest nights. Today his leg had been spasming as though dancing to some unheard music, his patient had slipped into a coma, and he'd just grown tired of Chase's accent. Never one for self-pity, he'd originally been planning on simply dining on cold Chinese food and watching some late-night television, but now it seemed he had other plans.

"You know, you're making a friend of mine very nervous," he finally said. They talked more lately than they had that first night, but that wasn't really saying much, was it? She looked at him out of the corner of her eye—a quick movement, but, well, he'd been watching her, so he caught it.

"Girlfriend?" she asked, voice unreadable.

"No."

That was all she needed to know, apparently, as she closed the already-minuscule distance between their bodies and pressed her lips to his. There was never really a set pattern to her visits, except for this. She always kissed him first. Sometimes it took ten minutes before they were moving on with things, and sometimes it was ten seconds. Tonight it was less than that. Her weight pressed lightly against his leg for just a moment, until she'd repositioned herself to minimize contact, and there was something about that quick surge of pain that made him flare to life.

He pushed her off of him immediately, almost tugging her into the bedroom. She followed, strangely obedient, and said not a word when he shoved her against the bed. There was no "House, your leg..." or "Are you sure you can do this?" from her mouth, and he knew that there wouldn't have been, even if he wasn't crushing her lips with his own. She didn't question things like that, didn't care. It was part of the reason he found himself allowing her into his apartment time and time again. Well, that and his coat. She was clever.

He made short work of her clothes, and her long pale fingers did the same for his. Being naked together seemed more normal than being clothed. They both knew how to relate to one another when naked: knew what touches did what, what each twitch of each muscle meant. When clothed, they merely sat together on the couch. It was when the clothes came off that things seemed to roar to life.

She never seemed to bruise, no matter how hard he gripped her hips or thighs or shoulders. Maybe that was the explanation for the long periods of absence between her visits. She was waiting for the marks to fade. That way, they could pretend that they hadn't been doing this all along, that this was some spontaneous decision on her part, or his part. It worked for them. These nights were stress-relief. Some nights he watched her as she moved, and somewhere behind her eyes, she seemed to be working something out, making her way through some private problem. Most nights, he just kept his own eyes closed and worked through his own—what had the patient taken before arriving at his hospital, where had that mysterious rash come from, the likes. Hell, usually he reached a conclusion just as he reached climax.

She didn't hang around afterwards, to complain about his lack of affection or to try to sleep in his bed. Sometimes he half-wished that she would, so he could trace those dark marks blooming slowly against light skin with equal parts pride and penitence. On very rare occasions—maybe when his leg hurt more than usual—he'd initiate a conversation afterwards, to trick her into staying a little longer. She'd slip away from him and sit on the other side of the bed, legs crossed and hands demurely folded in her lap, as though she weren't completely naked in a strange man's bed. Tonight was one of those occasions.

"Boyfriend?" He asked, collapsing from his original position, onto his back against the sheets warmed by her presence and sweat. She shook her head. Of course not. White-knuckled, House gripped his spasming leg. Dammit, girl, talk.

"No one," she elaborated, complying very nicely with his unspoken order. She reached across his body, and for a brief second he thought she was going to demand more of him than his old man body could give. Instead, she pushed his hand away and massaged his leg for him. Massages never worked—at least, not for very long, so he never bothered with that crap.

"Happy ending?" he asked with the smallest of smirks, and arched his eyebrow. She arched hers back at him, and let the comment pass into the night. Her hands were stronger than her body made them seem, fingers probing deep into his useless muscle. There was no relief, only the lack of a greater pain, and he got that, when she finally let her hand slip away.

He didn't care about her background or her past or even if she had some boy at home, wringing his hands nervously and wondering where the marks came from. Why should he? There was one thing that remained ever-present in his mind, throughout his days and their little pseudo-trysts, and that was why she kept coming. Tonight he finally let go, put sound to his thoughts and sought an answer.

"Why me?" He asked. The words were not self-pitying—he'd slice out his voice box before allowing that sort of sound to fall over his lips. They were simply curious. It was a valid question. Why was this young girl returning to his apartment, to his bed, when she could be picking up a stranger at some bar or something? Sometimes he resented her for it. This was a mystery that even he couldn't figure out—partly for lack of trying, but mostly because of her determination.

She smiled, as she slipped off the bed and groped in the dark to find her clothing. She'd gotten better at this sort of thing, through the months. "Why not?" she replied, stepping now through his bedroom door into the living room. He listened carefully, but, as usual, didn't hear the telltale sounds of leather rustling as she picked it up off of the couch. Still, he knew that it wouldn't be there later, when he finally decided to get up and go back to his Mu-shoo Pork.