Veritas?
"Annoying, isn't it," he said as he sunk into an armchair opposite to Lisa.
"What?" Lisa looked up startled from her contemplation of House on her lap. Then she recognised her visitor; after all the god of dreams had been around a couple of times before. "Hypnos? How…"
"Not to worry, you dozed off," Hypnos reassured her. "You'll wake up soon and go to your bed properly. He can sleep on the couch."
"He'll be sore in the morning," Lisa worried.
"Not from sleeping on the couch," Hypnos offered. "And a bed won't make any difference. He'll be miserable no matter where and how he sleeps. And deservedly so."
"I suppose," Lisa agreed. "But he did lose a patient."
"Was that any reason to get drunk and leave you alone to face the worry and the questions?" Hypnos asked.
"Yes," Lisa stated. "Maybe not a good enough reason, but a reason. He hates losing patients."
"But you were going to rip him a new one anyway the next time you saw him," Hypnos reminded her.
"That was then," Lisa sighed.
"But now you can't because he just told you that he loves you more than anything in the world," Hypnos recapped. "Very annoying of him."
"He did get me a mariachi band as well," Lisa said. "I just wish I knew if he would have attended if his patient hadn't died."
"You really think he wanted to miss the board's reaction when the band marched in?" Hypnos laughed. "I think it was fairly clear that he was going to be there, with bells on."
"But then he changed his mind," Lisa replied. She sounded hurt but even so she was stroking House's hair.
"He was thinking of ending this relationship," Hypnos said. "He wasn't going to play the attentive boyfriend while doing that."
"He may still decide to end things," Lisa worried.
"Wasn't he clear enough just now?" Hypnos wondered. "He will always choose you. He couldn't have spelled it out with more clarity. Sure, he might have been a bit more tactful about it had he been sober, but I'm not too convinced that he would have been. Not House."
"Yeah, he did make his choice," Lisa agreed. "His drunken choice. When he sobers up, he may feel differently."
"In vino veritas," Hypnos quoted. "And he's been drunk enough often enough to know that. He won't change his mind tomorrow."
"If he remembers what his mind was," Lisa was starting to get angry again.
"He wasn't that drunk," Hypnos argued. "Besides he had time to sober up some when he walked here."
"He can't have walked all the way from Bertha's," Lisa decided. "Not with his leg."
"You know the time Wilson called you and you know the time House showed up," Hypnos mused. "What do you think?"
"Surely he stopped at a bar somewhere to drink some more and then took a cab," Lisa suggested.
"Does it sound like him?" Hypnos asked. "I mean does it sound like him when he is on a mission? He made up his mind and decided to tell you. Would he really go drink some more?"
"I don't know," Lisa shrugged. "I don't know things like that about him. I never needed to before."
"Ok, you have doubts about his declaration," Hypnos sighed. "Share!"
"I'm not sure he meant what he said," Lisa started. "I mean permanently. And if he did, will he keep on choosing me if he loses more patients. He claims that it's all about the puzzle but in truth he cares about the patient. He hates it when they die. I can't help but wonder how many bodies he can take before he decides that being with me isn't worth the price."
"Are you afraid that he will blame you?" Hypnos asked. "He did say that you are the one who makes him a worse doctor."
"Oddly enough, I don't," Lisa stated. "I'm not holding him hostage or anything. He can leave me any time he wants – I just hope he won't do it while he is too drunk to think straight. He made his choice freely and without any influence from me. I don't think he will ever hold it against me."
"Will you hold it against yourself?" Hypnos wanted to know. "When his patient dies and you know he thinks it's because he chose you?"
"No," Lisa didn't sound convincing or convinced.
"He has always said that you have a very overdeveloped sense of guilt," Hypnos pointed out. "Are you sure it won't kick in?"
"No," Lisa admitted. "But on the other hand, I don't think he is right. I don't think anything can make him a worse doctor. Maybe at first, for a moment, but if pain didn't make him a bad doctor then how could happiness?"
"Concentrating on puzzles made him forget the pain," Hypnos said. "He doesn't want to forget happiness so he won't concentrate as hard."
"Maybe not," Lisa sighed. "Or maybe it will be the case only until he gets used to being happy. Until he starts to believe that this actually can last."
"You think you can ever make him believe that?" Hypnos asked. "He, if anyone, knows that nothing in life is permanent. Life itself isn't permanent."
"As long as I know he loves me," Lisa insisted. "I will stay with him. Yes, I may need a break once in a while because he is so larger than life. But I will never leave him."
"Of your own volition," Hypnos qualified. "You can't see into the future. Something may happen to you; something may happen to him that will make him push you away – he did with Stacy. He may finally do something that you can't defend and the board will fire him. You know he needs to work and if he is fired from your hospital the only hospitals likely to hire him are in Alaska. How will you survive a long distance relationship? Life is full on uncertainties. You cannot see around the corner."
"Why do you do that?" Lisa nearly shouted at him. "Why do you have to dig up every possible uncertainty there could be? Some that I even haven't had until you bring them up!"
"Are you sure I'm bringing up anything new?" Hypnos asked gently. "You both have your doubts. How could you not! You're not kids. You've both been in relationships before, you both have experiences that make you doubt things and yourselves, too. Of course you are uncertain. That makes it all the more remarkable that you are willing to work on this relationship. Yes, he may have been wielding a double edged sword when he confessed his love to you. And you're no dummy; you know it can cut both of you deeply if you're not careful with it. But now you know that he really is willing to put everything on the line for you and this relationship. He chose you, over what until now has been his life. The one thing that has kept him going; kept him alive. Yes, to be that important is a burden as well as a joy. And you have every reason to be apprehensive. But at least you know."
"I'm not sure I wasn't better off not knowing," Lisa sighed.
"Yes you are," Hypnos stated. "You are no coward. That is why you insisted on brutal honesty. And that is what you got."
"And then some!" Lisa agreed.
"Yeah," Hypnos nodded. "Why don't you wake up, go to back to bed and see how things are in the morning. Morning is always a better time to think about these things than three o'clock in the night."
"He will be here in the morning," Lisa pointed out.
"Sure he will," Hypnos smiled. "But I'm fairly sure he will be very quiet. Until about noon, at least."