Title: Mentor

Chapter Seven: Everyone Sees it Except You

Second Semester Junior Year (i.e.- One Year Later)

Over the course of the next year, House was getting increasingly paranoid about being found out. He hadn't meant to start calling Allison as often as he did with the hospital's phones, but it just seemed to happen. At first it had started as simple things, organic chemistry questions, a few medical quizes, and maybe even a few tips on remembering other little things. Then, in just a month of talking on the phone, Allison had begun sidestepping the usual conversations, and they'd begun to learn more about each other. He knew that she was the youngest in her family and had two older brothers. He knew where she grew up, and that she covered her mouth when she got embarrassed. He had figured that one out over time, when her voice would muffle when he asked her if she was staying away from guys, and focusing on school. House wasn't quite sure why he asked her that. It must make him seem rather pushy to be asking such things, or like a father figure. He groaned at the thought of being considered her father.

Walking down the corridor between oncology and diagnostics, House continued reflecting on the last year, and how much he'd found himself thinking of Allison. "What's going on with you, House?" Lisa Cuddy snagged her old college friend in the hallway. "Dr. Wilson says you've been really off lately." The endocrinologist crossed her arms over her chest.

"Don't worry about it." House shoved past her. "Just mentoring."

"Ha! That's a joke if I've ever heard one!" Cuddy snarled.

"No, a joke would be me saying that your blouse makes you look like a professional doctor and not an exhibitionist." House rolled his eyes and turned away.

"Greg!" Cuddy shouted after him. "Wilson says it's a girl."

"The student I'm mentoring?" House turned and quirked an eyebrow. He'd managed to avoid discussing Allison with Cuddy, though he couldn't guarantee that Wilson had kept his mouth shut from leaking information.

"No, the person you've got an infatuation with." She said firmly. "And if you don't stop calling her with the hospital's phone, you're gonna get in an ass load of trouble."

"I do not have an infatuation!" House leered at the constant thorn in his side.

Lisa looked at him for a long moment, "So, you're in love with her?"

"HA!"

"Greg, this is serious! What about Stacey!?" Lisa closed the distance and hissed at him.

"I am not in love with a college girl!" House whispered quietly, "I'm just helping her out. Her MCATs are coming up in a couple of months, and she's getting test anxiety."

"You don't help people, House. You find out what's wrong with them and fix the problem, not the person. If you're helping her out, then you've got a damn good reason, and it has nothing to do with being out of the kindness of your heart!" Cuddy's voice dropped just as low as his.

"She could be great, Lisa." House told her finally, stunning Cuddy by the use of her first name, "That's all. She could be really great." And with that he finally left to return to his office.

Lisa Cuddy stared down the hallway for a long moment. She knew better than to confront House directly. He was too good at evading her in front of her face. The only way to figure out what House was up to was to snoop.

She had no desire to go to the Hospital Director unless she found something that would considerably harm the hospital. That made her feel comforted, only because she knew House wouldn't do something so drastic, that she'd need to report him. With a heavy sigh, Lisa went to Wilson's office.

"So?" Wilson looked up, excited to see Lisa, hoping for news on his friend. "What's going on?"

"I think House has a pretty big crush on this girl."

"What!?" Wilson was shocked. He knew that House was not fickle in the least, that was why he was so surprised. After all, his friend had been living with Stacey for a year and a half already and House was already straying? Either Stacey was distancing herself, or this protege of House's was really something special.

"I thought the same thing." Lisa flopped down in the chair in front of Wilson's desk. "But he denies it, of course. I'm just afraid he's going to mess up a good thing with Stacey for this girl, and she's going to think he's just some nice guy who's trying to help her out."

"Do you really think it's possible that he actually cares about her... in that way?"

"Have you seen the phone bills he's been putting on the hospital's tab? I've been having to explain them to the director." Cuddy groaned.

"How'd you manage that?"

"Told him pretty much the same thing House told me. That the student shows great potential and House is keeping in touch so that he can help them get into a good med-school." Cuddy rubbed her eyes from soreness. Apparently it had been a long discussion with the director.

"That's not a good sign." Wilson gestured to Cuddy's eye rubbing, "What else happened?"

"Well," Cuddy took a deep breath, "let's just say, I hope this girl is as good as House says she is."

"Why?"

"You know that internship we have going on this summer?"

"No way!" Wilson stood up abruptly, "You told the Director that she was still in pre-med right? She can't do an internship, she hasn't even taken her MCATs yet! How could she get in an internship-"

Lisa shook her head, "No no. She's not getting in the internship." She rolled her eyes at that bizarr conclusion that Wilson had drawn. "But the director would like House to extend her an invitation to observe. Which means I'll have to extend the invite, cause we both know House would never go for it." She groaned audibly, "Plus, the director really wants to get this girl interested in PPTH so that she'll consider a job here in the future. He said that if she could impress House, then she must be something special." Lisa held her temple. "Remind me to kill House."

"But how are you going to mail her the info? I doubt House knows her address, and even if he could find it out, I doubt he'd bother to go through the trouble for you." Wilson pointed out House's lackluster want for helping his co-workers

"He doesn't have to. She signed in at the lecture she attended, and filled out the mailing info for those interested in additional information." Lisa explained. "I had to dig it out from his brief case when he came back from that lecture. It had a giant coffee ring on it. Did I mention that I'm going to kill House?"

----------------------------

Leaning his head against the door to his condo, House closed his eyes. During his lunch break, he'd decided to drive home and grab his Rubik's Cube, but now he couldn't open the door to his condo. He couldn't enter yet, because music was playing. He couldn't because Stacey was there. This was bad. This was very bad. Stacey was supposed to be at work still, just like he should still be at work.

With a sigh, House prepared himself for the worst, because he knew that was what he was in for. Opening the door, House looked at the CD player which was filtering out one of his smooth jazz CD's. He would have to remember to shatter that CD when this was over.

Walking slowly to the bedroom he shared with Stacey, he could already see the two bodies writhing in a tangle of bedsheets. He'd have to remember to burn those sheets when this was over.

Leaning against the doorframe, House watched the display continue, undisturbed by his noiseless appearance. It was hard for him to watch the heap of limbs moving together in a panting, heated frenzy. He saw Stacey's hands grip the headboard as a cry of pleasure tore from her lips. Maybe he should just replace the whole bed when this was over.

"Good afternoon." House said loudly enough for them to hear, but retain a level of cold calmness.

The two bodies froze and he saw Stacey and a man he didn't know sit up in a quick movement. "G-Greg!" Stacey yelped.

House's eyes went to the man, staring at his big brown, fearful eyes. As House jerked his head, the stranger scrambled off of the bed and into his clothes, only taking time to put on his pants before he gathered the rest and scurried out of the condo.

Stacey remained in the bed, still covered in the sheet. As if House hadn't seen all that lay beneath that sheet.

"Greg, let me explain!" Stacey cried as House turned out of the door frame and made his way back towards the CD player, turning off the smooth jazz and opting for one of his old The Who albums.

"Nothing to explain, Stacey." House said as he went to the kitchen and grabbed a beer. He wasn't going back to work now. Not after seeing that.

"Yes there is!" She cried, grabbing his wrist and tugging the beer from his grasp. "I have to tell you why I'm-"

"Fucking another guy in our bedroom?" House supplied. "And listening to my CD's while you're fucking around with another guy? That's low. I liked that CD, and now I'm not gonna be able to listen to it again without visualizing another guy making you come!"

Stacey was becoming frantic. "You're the one-"

"Yeah, Stacey, I'm the one who stopped paying attention to you." House admitted, "I'm sorry I stopped paying attention to you. Just tell me one thing, Stacey. When did you start fucking another guy? And I'll tell you when I stopped thinking of you when we had sex."

"Last month." Stacey admitted.

"Then while you're packing up, take comfort in the fact that you win. My mind cheated long before your body did." House left his beer on the counter as he grabbed his keys and went towards the front door. "You've got an hour to get the fuck out, and don't forget to leave your key on the table." He said as he slammed the door.

He didn't get far before Stacey chased him into the hallway, still covered in the bedsheet. "I wouldn't have, Greg! I wouldn't have if you had just told me the truth. Why didn't you tell me it was a girl? Why didn't you tell me you were falling for her?"

"Because I didn't know." House told her. "And you're wasting your hour."

"How didn't you know!?" She hollered.

"Because I was too busy trying not to fall for her, to realize that I had already begun to."

Stacey held her sheet to her tightly. "So... This is goodbye?"

"Yeah, Stacey, it is." House answered, "Even if I stopped thinking of her, and you stopped fucking him; we'd both be too paranoid to love each other again. Goodbye." He walked out of the building and Stacey went back to their apartment to pack up her things.

As House walked through the streets, he began to wonder when he had officially begun to fall for the young woman nearly 800 miles away from him. He wasn't sure if it was from the moment he saw her at the lecture, or the first time he'd dreamt of her. He wasn't sure if she'd ever get out of his head.

However, the thing that made him the most curious was how everyone had seen it except for him. Wilson, Cuddy, Stacey. All three knew that he was falling in love with someone who wasn't Stacey. Did Allison make him act different? Talk different? Was there something about when he got an e-mail from her or a phone call from her that changed his personality so much that people saw it?

House didn't notice when Stacey's hour was up, or when another hour passed. Returning to his home at last, House collapsed on the couch, even though he really wanted to sleep. However, nothing was going to get him on that bed.

Grabbing his phone, House called Wilson, "I need your help, come over."

When Wilson arrived, he found House stripping his bed down, "What's going on?" Wilson asked as he watched House throw the bed linings into a garbage can.

"I need your help with this." House grunted, flipping the mattress off of the frame and sliding it towards the door. "Grab that garbage can." House jerked his head at the garbage can of bedsheets. It smelled quite strongly of gasoline.

"Uh, House?" Wilson picked up the garbage can. Heading towards the door, the oncologist noted the shattered remains of a CD.

"What?" House panted, pushing the mattress out of the door and down the hall. Wilson got in front of him and opened the door to the outside, setting the garbage on the sidewalk before helping his friend lift up the mattress and carry it to the dumpster.

"Why are you throwing out your mattress and sheets?" Wilson asked as they hoisted the mattress into the dumpster. House went back and got the garbage can.

"Not just the mattress." House lit a match and threw it into the metal garbage can, setting it aflame instantaneously. "I'm throwing out the frame too."

"Why?" Wilson asked, paranoia making him look around and pray that a cop didn't pass in House's moment of arson.

"Because she grabbed it."

"Huh?"

"Stacey grabbed the bedframe while she was fucking another guy." House growled.

"Oh hell." Wilson groaned as he watched the sheets burn for a moment before following House back into the apartment to disassemble the bedframe. "Where are you sleeping tonight?"

"Pull out couch."

Wilson nodded, "Just don't do anything stupid, oh, and I'm confiscating all but half a bottle of your liquor tonight."

"I'm not going to drink."

"Really?"

"Really." House answered as he took to the metal frame with a screwdriver. "I'm just going to call Allison and talk."

Surprised more than ever, Wilson found himself just nodding. Lisa had been right. House was falling hard.

TBC

A/N-YAY- Goodbye Stacey!! Review please!-Andi