A/N: Thank you for everyone who put me on their story/author alerts and thank you for everybody else who bothered to take the time to read and review this and yes I know that it's a short chapter... anyway happy reading

"So, how are things?" Nolan said as a greeting.

House was at his regular appointment. And all he really wanted was to spend the rest of the day with Annette, he hadn't seen her in three days. She had some urgent meetings at the university and he had a patient which seemed to be dying on him every hour. Today was the first day, where the patient seemed to be holding his own.

"Things are actually great." He allowed a small smile to cross his face "They seem to be going in the right direction."

"That's good to hear." He returned his smile.

"Yeah" House looked around the room for awhile "So, we done."

"No we're not. Why, do you need to be somewhere?" Nolan asked amused.

"Yeah, I haven't seen her for 3 days. This appointment is getting in the way of sexing-up-my-woman-time."

"So, you really like her, huh?"

"What is with everybody asking me this question? I'm fed up with hearing it. It's like you and Wilson don't think I have any kind of emotion. Of course I like her otherwise I would've stopped seeing her. If anything she should be running away from me." He finished in a quiet voice.

"Why would she run away from you?"

"Let's face it, she is at least 10 years younger than me and very bright, she's gonna figure out sooner or later that I'm an ass."

"If you think you're better off without her, why don't you just tell her that?"

House looked everywhere, but at Nolan. He had been wondering the same thing for the last three days.

"I don't know." He finally settled on.

"I think you're worried that this could be the beginning of something good."

God, he hated it when Nolan was right. Yes he was scared, but not that this could be the real deal, but that he would screw this up in a very bad way.

"What if I screw this up?" Nolan really felt bad for House. His experience with Stacy had harmed House a great deal.

"Just because your relationship with Stacy ended badly, doesn't mean that this one will." He tried to reassure House.

"Yeah, like you're the right person to ask about this, you're divorced right?"

"Yes"

"See. And I can't ask Wilson about this, because he is divorced three times and I don't have anybody else to ask."

"Right, so maybe you should tell her about this. Tell her what's on your mind and if she will run away screaming then you have all your answers to your fears."

"How do you expect I do this? Just say listen babe, you're better off without me, so good bye?" House shook his head and got, because he could see that their time was up.

"So how come you're itching to get out of here? Is it just so you can have sex with her?" Nolan watched him turn around and this time he had a real smile on his face, something rarely seen on what had become his favorite patient during the last six months.

"Of course I am. See you next week." And with that House left Nolan's office almost with a spring in his step.

Nolan knew that this was more than just sex for House. The whole incident with Lydia proved that House was capable to have a romantic relationship with somebody and maybe Annette sounded like a great woman. He also thought that House needed some kind of happiness in his life again.