A/N: This is the third ending I wrote for this story. I kind of like this one too, although the original is still my favorite. But House lives in this one!!!! Please review!

Chapter 10

Ending #3

She sat in the solarium, staring out the window in front of her, but not really seeing anything. Today was the 16th, and the nurse had wheeled her into the solarium for his visit. He always visited her on the 16th. That was the day it had happened, and he came to mark that day every month. Fifteen visits a year, on the 16th of every month, on her birthday, on his birthday and at Christmas. She always sat quietly while he talked to her.

She felt his presence when he entered. It was no different now than it had been three years ago when it had happened. She could sense him first, somehow. Then she would hear the familiar step-thump as he limped across the room. Finally, she would smell him, a deep rich scent of aftershave and lingering cigar smoke.

She saw him sitting across from her, but her eyes showed no recognition. She had been catatonic from the day it happened, and although the doctors and nurses knew she was aware of the world around her, she had withdrawn from it. She had never spoken, in all the three years she had been there. She hadn't spoken since it happened, in fact. She didn't feed or clothe or bathe herself. She maintained enough connection to the world to follow a simple instruction like stand up or lift your arms, but that was all.

She sat and listened to his deep, gravelly voice greet her. He called her Allison now. She sat and listened to him tell her stories. He told her stories about himself. Sometimes he told her about the hospital, about Foreman and Chase and Wilson and even Cuddy. Sometimes he told her about the patients when he'd had an especially bizarre case. But mostly, he told her stories about himself.

She heard all about his childhood. About how he'd moved from one place to another as he and his mother had followed his father from one base to another. She heard about how he'd never really learned to make friends, because by the time he got to know the kids in his school, it was time to move. She heard about how he and his father had never gotten along, and about how as much as he loved his mother; he blamed her for sticking with him all those years.

She heard about college, and all the crazy stunts he'd pulled. During one visit, it had been on her birthday, he had told her all about the affair he and Cuddy had when she was in med school and he was the chief resident. She heard about how he'd met Wilson and how they became friends. She heard about Stacy. Slowly, over the last three years, he had told her almost everything about himself.

Today, he was telling her about those first long years after his infarction. He told her all about the pain, and the anger and the loneliness. He told her about how he'd felt when he'd hired her. He told her how pretty she was, and that despite everything he'd ever said to her and all the denials, he'd been a little afraid of her. He'd been afraid because he thought maybe he could love her, if he let himself.

He told her Wilson and Cuddy had found out that he was visiting her. Cuddy thought he was feeling guilty, that maybe he felt like he had driven her to this. Wilson thought he was visiting her because he still felt something. She heard him laugh, and whisper that Wilson wasn't completely wrong.

She listened in silence. Sometimes tears glistened in her eyes, and occasionally the ghost of a smile would cross her face. Today she was expressionless. He told her that he still came to see her because he was hoping one day, that she would talk back to him, and he could ask her why she did it. He wanted to figure her out. He had been so wrong about her, and it bothered him. He could understand an obsession. After all, here he was, three years later, still visiting her looking for an answer.

She felt him stand up and walk beside her wheelchair. She heard him click off the wheel lock and watched the walls go by as he wheeled her back to her room. She sat in front of the TV, where he locked the chair in place, and she stared blankly at it. She heard him say goodbye, and tell her he'd be back next month.

She sat. She waited. She knew him now, but she took no pleasure in it. She took no pleasure in anything anymore. Trapped within her own mind, she did the only thing she could do. She waited to come to terms with her other obsession. She waited for death.