A/N: Just a short chapter, but it's accompanied by some reccies. I figure most of you are acquainted with my awesome beta Brighid45's Treatment series. (If not, check out the first story in the series, also called 'Treatment'. It's an excellent alternative to post-S5 canon, because it is more realistic and it gives us a House who grows slowly but steadily instead of falling back into his old rut.) What many don't know is that she's written a lovely little glimpse of S8 House and Wilson called 'Tis a Gift to be Free'.

Part 1: Bristol

Chapter 5: Fire ...

He finds her on Facebook. After waiting the requisite number of days (a week, he thinks, is long enough to not appear openly stalker-ish), he friends her, and she follows suit a day later. He's kept wondering for another week whether it's just reciprocal politeness on her part, but then she sends him a message asking for his apple pie recipe. That's a smoke screen, obviously: his pies were good, but nothing extraordinary; she could find as good a recipe in any standard cookbook. But of course he obliges. Her reply, saying that the pies were much praised by the friend she'd invited to dinner - it's unclear whether the person is question is male or female and, as he tells himself, it's absolutely none of his concern -, is embellished by a photo of her efforts. He responds by sending a link to an article about the aphrodisiac effects of almonds (which feature rather heavily in his recipe) and he tags a casual post script to his message that expresses the hope that there were no untoward incidents after dessert. The emoticon that accompanies her reply rolls its eyes, while she professes her relief that their one-night stand was to be entirely attributed to food chemistry. At that he's tempted to send her a YouTube link to a house collapsing during a tornado, but he just about manages to suppress his baser instincts, sending her a link to his favourite 'medical' clip instead: a Swedish ad showing two ambulance drivers defibrillating a guy to death because they think the sound of the parktronic in their new ambulance is the guy flat-lining.

From then on their exchanges become casual, embellished by the odd link or media file, but while she's curious enough about what he's doing, she's still tight as a clam about her own private life - until she announces about six weeks after her departure that she is to be in London for a few days on a 'work-related' trip. Did he have time to meet her?

When the message pops up on his screen, he sits back to contemplate it. Yes, he would like to meet her, and if he doesn't have the time to meet her, he'll make the time. After all, what's getting sacked one more time in the greater scope of things? But what the heck can the head of 'Family and Community Health' be doing in England again on work-related issues? Hospitals don't normally pay their employees to go gallivanting around half the globe unless there's a good reason. She isn't a noted specialist in any medical area that might require a consult, and she has no recent publications to her name. He checks out the medical conferences in the Greater London area for that week and draws a blank. Much as he'd like to flatter himself into believing that he's the reason for her visit, he's aware that a one-night stand with a cook is hardly likely to draw someone like her back over the ocean: she doesn't seem the kind to believe that at the age of forty-plus she's met the one true love of her life, her soul-mate, the one the stars predestined for her. Nor would she be likely to beat around the bush; if she was interested, she wouldn't resort to subterfuges such as work to justify her presence. That woman is hiding something, and doesn't he just want to find out what it is!

So he asks her when and where he should meet her, and goes up to London on the day. She meets him at the coach station, for which he's grateful because the thought of meandering around London with a London A-Z trying to find her hotel does not appeal to him. She has a few sights that she insists she has to see, but luckily the queue outside Westminster Abbey convinces her that she can get as good an impression, if not a better one, of the main tourist attractions on the internet.

"What do you expect?" he grouses. "It's half-term and a Bank Holiday weekend. The whole of bloody England is here in London, and half of Japan."

They take a ferry down the Thames towards Greenwich instead. Between Westminster and the Tower she's on the verge of falling overboard trying to get decent photos of all the sights, but after the Tower it's a bit calmer. He takes the opportunity to ask casually, "So what exactly are you doing in London?"

She leans back and stares out over the water. "Oh, it's a sort of get-together of people who are into community health care. An informal sort of thing; networking, you know, and all that," she says vaguely. She's lying.

"And your hospital foots the bill when you say you want to spend a few days in London, networking."

"Well, not the entire costs, but a large chunk. It's a good opportunity for them, too, to find out how community health care is done efficiently and at low cost in other countries." She's lying again.

"So ... you're not here to see me," he probes.

Her head swivels round, and she stares at him incredulously. "No!" Strikeout! "You're totally full of yourself, aren't you?"

"I asked you three questions and you lied in answer to all three of them. You're pretty mendacious, I'd say."

"You think you can tell when I'm lying? How?"

Interesting. She's stopped pretending to have told the truth in order to figure out how he can tell when she's telling the truth. "Not sure," he says, "but there's something about the way you ... it's a mixture of your expression and the way you intone your sentences."

She shakes her head in little movements, her smile one of disbelief. "Naaah, you're full of it."

"Tell me three things about yourself: two that are true and one that is false. But slowly."

"Okay." She thinks for a moment before saying rather monotonously, "One, I was born in Boston. Two, I have a brother and a sister. Three, I lost my virginity when I was fifteen."

"Okay," he says, leaning with his back to the water, elbows propped against the railing. "You don't have a brother and a sister." He considers this, and then he adds, "Maybe one or the other, but not both."

"Oh, crap," she says, an admission of defeat.

"Absolutely!" he grins. "So, you're here to see me. Which means I'm going to get some tonight."

"No."

"No, what? As in, 'No, I'm not here to see you,' although we've already established that you lied about that, or, 'No, you're not getting any tonight, although I flew over three thousand miles to see you'?"

"I'm not sleeping with you."

This time she's not lying, and she remains adamant. When he drops her off at her hotel, she won't let him come in with her. He looks down at her, more confused than disgruntled.

"Are you some kind of religious nutter?" he asks. "You come all this way and then ..." He rolls his hand in a gesture indicating failure.

"Does it always have to be sex?" she returns. "Can't I just be interested in your well-being? I cost you your job the last time I was here."

"You're here because you feel guilty. Brilliant!" He looks up at the stars as though to blame them. "She has the sex of her life with me, and all she sees in me is an object of commiseration and charity." He rolls his eyes drolly, pretending to be hurt.

"I'll have you know that I've had a lot of sex in my life, and your performance doesn't make it into the Top Ten."

"You know, that sort of remark can affect a man's virility."

"I'll prescribe you some of those blue pills. Now go!" She gives him a gentle shove in the back to propel him away. Then she adds as an afterthought, "Do you know how to get to the Underground from here? Straight down the road until you get to the second traffic light, and from there you'll find signs."

He reaches Bristol at midnight, tired, footsore and stump-sore (he isn't used to so much walking - he's more into swimming at the moment), and more than a little cheesed off. She's here because she feels sorry for him? That's all kinds of crazy, starting off with the time she's investing, ending with the cheddar she's laid out, and with a lot of why-not-have-sex-if-we-both-want-it in the middle. He's in two minds about going down to London again the next day to see her, but he knows his curiosity won't let him rest while her behaviour is such a complete mystery to him. So as a compromise, he goes in later than she expects him, making her wait for him at the coach station. He knows, even as he does it, that it defeats its own purpose: he gets less time to solve this mystery since she's due to leave in the afternoon, and she'll be mad at him for being late.

"You're an ass," she greets him.

"And you're playing with me," he says seriously.

She's surprised at such directness, he can see. She's silent for a moment, and then she says, "No."

"Pardon me if I see that differently," he says, unable to subdue his anger. He's had all night to think about this, and the more he thinks, the unhappier he is with the situation. "You come bulldozing into my life, expecting me to be at your beck and call, but you won't tell me what this is about. I don't know anything about you that one can't google and I have no idea why I've become your latest charity project, but I'm supposed to be duly grateful. This is like some modern re-write of Great Expectations, but I've always thought that Pip was a wimp and a bloody fool to put up with other people's desire to patronise him without trying to figure out why."

She's angry now, too. "That's not quite how it was. You followed me. You invited me to your place. You turned up at the airport. I asked whether you could come and see me here; I didn't demand that from you. If you don't want this, then that's fine." She swallows before she continues. "You can go any time. I won't try to stop you."

"Okay." He turns on his heel - it's not quite as impressive a gesture as he'd like it to be because his prosthetic doesn't lift as elegantly off the ground as the effect requires - and starts back the way they just came. (At least, he hopes it's the way they just came ...)

He has only gone a few steps when she calls, "You remind me of someone."

He stops, but he doesn't turn round.

"Someone I used to know." She has followed him and is now right behind him. He turns round to face her. Damn his curiosity - he should really, really walk away. "He was brilliant, and witty, and ... and very, very sick." She isn't lying today.

"And he hurt you," he surmises. This must the abusing motherfucker she's talking about. "So now you're pursuing someone who reminds you of that asshole; going for the same 'type'. I'm sure that's completely in character for abuse victims - go right back and make the same mistake again - and wow! Am I flattered!"

She rears back as though he's slapped her when he didn't even go near her, her face pale with shock. He turns round and walks away again, really walks away, for judging by her expression she isn't going to be following him any time soon.

This is a fucking sight worse than Great Expectations! At least the convict became Pip's benefactor because he saw Pip's potential. He's being singled out for charity because he reminds Lisa of a criminal.

He walks around for two hours, at first to work off his frustration, and then because he's utterly lost, before he gives up and asks someone the way to the Underground. Then he rides out to the airport, paling when he realises what he has to deal with over there. (Five frigging huge terminals - bloody rabbit warrens!) But he has her flight number - she sent him her flight data before she arrived - and once more he swallows his pride and asks his way round to her check-in area. He doesn't see her anywhere, so he goes to the flight information desk and cons them ('my wife has forgotten her medication') into telling him that she has dropped off her baggage and has, in all probability, gone through security already. So he has her called out, and then he waits at the security gate, wondering whether she'll come back. She'll know it is he who had her called out.

She approaches slowly from the departure area, looking around for him, her face set. When she comes closer he can see that her eyes are swollen. He looks down at his feet so he won't have to see her expression when she spots him. When he looks up again, she's sweet-talking the security guard, nodding over at him. She's successful, of course; she could charm the pants off a polar bear. She comes out and walks up to him, looking up at him for a moment. He doesn't move, the apology he has prepared stuck somewhere in his throat.

"I've got to go back in," she says.

"Yeah."

She steps right up to him and draws him into a rough hug. His arms automatically come up around her, enveloping her in a tight embrace. They stand that way without moving until the security guard clears his throat behind her.

"Ma'am, it's the last call for your flight."

She withdraws from his embrace and turns away, not looking at him at all. The security guard gives him an apologetic shrug.

"Crying again. Well, you're lucky to have such a loving wife." At his basilisk stare the security guard amends, "Well, girlfriend, then - can't tell nowadays, can one? Me wife, she'd be rejoicing to get away from me."

"Can't blame her," he says as he turns to go.

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