He's not stupid. But for some reason, he wants her to think so. He's putting it down to Izzie and Callie and how things ended. How love tricked him twice in a row and three times is just not going to happen.

So, he's ignoring advances and breaking her heart. He'll be the one in charge and she'll be an intern who'll run around for the stupid things like stitches and coffee, doing charts and putting in IVs. He'll be Doctor O'Malley and she'll just be an intern, one who doesn't have a face, whose name he'll barely say anymore.

At least, that's what he's telling himself. Until the end of the day when he returns to the place they call 'home', the roach infested, hospital stolen decorated hole they've made home.

And, in reality, she's not another intern. She's Lexie Grey, with the photographic memory, who told him that he was only off for one point, who studied with him for hours on end so he could take a re-try. Who bought him a beer for passing, who decorated his locker. Lexie Grey. And he's trying to forget her because love's just been playing games on him lately, and he doesn't want to leave two injured players.

Days pass and she's still pissed at him, he can tell from the looks she doesn't give him, from the ice covered ones she does give him, and the pointedly not returned ones.

He wants to apologize, and he knows she would probably understand. No probably about it, she would. Because she takes back and forgives more times than is human. He just doesn't want to tell her that he's hurting her because he doesn't want to hurt her, that love's tricked him and he's sick of that.

Anyone would tell him that you have to dust yourself off and get back in the game, but he doesn't want to. He wants to dust himself off and get ready for the next round.

As it is, he's exhausted by the new work he has. Keeping track of people who used to be his friends and are now under his power, and who don't remember to call him Doctor is not what he imagined.

Their house stays filled with silence and he's staying at the hospital longer and leaving the house earlier, and suddenly it feels as if they're married, which is what he doesn't want to go through again.

He thinks that he can stand this, because one of them will give in and move out, move on, but they stay. And so he starts noticing these things again, in the moments when he is home, how her shampoo has changed from strawberries to green tea (which it was before he told her he liked the former), that her bags are always put neatly away, not on the chair, where they used to go. That there's three new shirts hanging up to dry and none of them are what she usually wears. He realizes that she wants to catch eyes. She's going to move on, while he's stuck living this circle of avoiding and ducking, moving and missing.

Passing that test seemed like the best thing at the time, but now he's realizing that it's complicated so many things. He used to live in a daydream of easy answers and routine routine rounds he was that used to.

When he passed that test, he thinks, he failed something else, someone else, and it's going to kill him, slowly, he realizes.

So, while she's sleeping, and before he leaves, he slips a note, a start, into her hand, curled on her pillow, and throws a quick prayer that it will help him slip into that third time.