A week had passed, she figured that he'd been taking care of himself. Well knowing Dorian he would be trying to push just how far he could go without popping any stitches.

Tess wondered why she was doing this, she knew that anyone could have treated him, but since the last time they met and the scene he had caused, scaring the poor nurse who was trying to do her job, she wanted to avoid a scene like that and had scheduled it for him and sent him an owl.

Now she waited as she did some paperwork before she was notified he was there.

Dorian apparated into the patient waiting room and groaned. He'd been getting around fine without a chair, just not putting pressure on his leg, but there wasn't much control in an apparation. He grabbed a wheel chair and checked himself in. Merlin knew what would happen if Tess saw him without it.

When he was told she would see him, he made his way to her office. He saw her through the doorway, engrossed in her paperwork. He honestly didn't interact with women in settings like this, so was overly curious around her. When she looked up he smiled softly.

"Hope I'm not interupting."

Tess let out a soft smile and shook her head. She wondered if she had actually managed to get him to be in a wheelchair, but doubted it. Still, she closed her folders and moved her files away.

"Never bothering me" she said brightly.

She stood up and pushed her chair in before walking out of her office. She made a movement expecting him to follow her into the examination room.

"You ready to get your stitches out?" she asked.

Dorian followed Tess to the room, not failing to notice the wondeful view he had. He'd spent a lot of his forced down time thinking about her. And after a whole week...he was still confused.

"Yeah. The sooner they're out, the sooner I can get back up and around." He was looking forward to getting back to work. Even if it just meant small things. At least it would be something other than the small space of his flat. He stopped by the bed, hoping over to the table and backing up onto it. He'd opted to wear a nice polo shirt and khaki short so that, maybe he wouldn't have to get into that blasted hospital gown again.

As Tess got her things around, he clasped his hands together, clearing his throat. "I really appreciate you doing all this for me. Yourself, I mean." He looked at his hands, not sure what to expect, and figuring rejection was more bareable if he didn't have to see it in her eyes. "I was wondering if I could treat you to dinner or something." Not able to stand it, he met her warm eyes. "Or ice cream, or...whatever."

Tess was humming softly picking things out, getting ready to get the stitches out. She was in the middle of washing her hands, she turned her head once she heard him talk.

"It's not a problem" She said smiling at him thanking her.

But once he kept talking, she was wide eyed at his comment. He was asking her out? She hoped she wasn't gaping like a fish. She noticed he wasn't looking at her but rather his hands as if he was waiting. Tess turned off the faucet and put on her gloves letting the silence loom over them as her thoughts were going a mile a minute.

Would she really want to do this? This was close to what Alec did to her; what would he say, and what would Victoria say? It was a fact that both of them were wrapped up on one another, and she rarely saw Victoria who was off with Alec to places. And what of Dorian. he was a player, always asking out women to sleep with them, was she going to be a number?

"Let's see after we get the stitches out okay?" she answered quietly.

She needed to think of what would be best, she didn't want to shoot him down, but she needed to concentrate on this. Talk about the timing being off.

Dorian wanted to leave and never come back. Crawl back to his flat and stay there for another week. He could tell by Tess's tension that she didn't welcome his question. He groaned inwardly.

He'd gone back and forth with this over the past week. He'd seen how hard it was for Tess to deal with Alec and Victoria. But they'd seemed so happy, and she had seemed to accept them, eventually. So he was hoping that something in her thinking had changed. Maybe instead of thinking of things as black in white, maybe she could see that it could only strengthen bonds.

Aparently he was wrong. He could live with that. He'd lived with worse.

He furrowed his brow. "Can I leave and come back in? Forget the last five minutes?"

Tess let out a soft grin and put her hand on his shoulder. She didn't want to hurt him, she just needed some time to think, and she couldn't be jumbled up while she was working on him, stitches weren't her strongest things anyways.

"I don't want to forget" she said softly leaned forward and kissed his cheek. "But, I'm on the job right now...I don't date patients."

Letting out a coy grin, she sat in her chair and tugged his shorts up to try and reach the stitches. Looked up at him she blushed and knew that perhaps she was being really careful. It wasn't anything serious just...going out right?

"Ask me in ten minutes and I'll give you an answer alright?"

She didn't want to hurt him, or reject him outright, he was quite kind, and entertaining. She'd be a fool to not take a chance.

Dorian's eye widened when she kissed him. He wasn't used to a simple gesture like that. It was so...sweet. If anything, it confused him more. He was used to knowing what a woman wanted and expected from him. But Tess...he felt she was from another plain of existance.

He thought that was the end of it when she exposed his leg, trying to get to the stitches. She said she didn't want to forget, and blamed her job. He almost smirked. That was an excuse that him and Alec used if a woman got particularly clingy. That their jobs didn't allow for extended relationships.

He tried not to think or how her hands ghosted over his thigh as she worked, making his skin tingle. But when she told him to ask again, it felt like his breath had been kicked out of him. It's going to be a long ten minutes.

Tess noticed his gaze and looked down hiding a smirk. In all honesty, she was surprised by his reaction. For someone knowing how to court a woman, who knew what they liked, he was really looking lost. She was never one to be tricky or lead a person on, but for him, she felt like wasn't completely sold on the idea. She was curious though, and curiosity killed the cat.

She could tell that he wasn't really taking care of the stitches as well as he could.

"You've been walking instead of using I wheelchair, I can tell." she said tsking.

Once she was done with the last stitch, she wiped the alcohol, muttered a spell to cover the wound and stood up walking towards the bin to throw away her gloves, the pieces of wire, and the swabs used. Turning around she let out a coy smile wondering what he was going to do.

Dorian gave her a small, unassuming smirk. He moved his hand up to rub the back of his neck. "Can't put anything past you, can I?" He had no idea how she could tell, maybe from that last apparation into the hospital. He felt a little bad about not following her orders, but figured he'd stayed off it for the most part, hoping around his flat when he needed to.

When she'd finally finished and turned to throw the items away, he let out a nervous breath. He'd been trying, over the last few minutes, to psych himself up. To tell himself that it was just like any other time he'd asked a girl out. Except for those times were with women that wanted nothing other than a good shag and goodbye. But...this wasn't the same. Not in the slightest.

He was surprised when she simply turned around and smiled at him, waiting. He felt like an anxious teenager. Deciding to just go with it, he held out his hand to her. "Are you going to come over here, or do you want to make a cripple hop over to you?" He didn't want to ask her across a room.

Tess covered her mouth to try not to laugh at his horrible joke. She still let out a giggle and bit her bottom lip walking closer to him. She was nervous for some odd reason, she didn't like him, at least not that way. She barely knew him, but being asked out on a date always made her nervous. Last time she felt like this it was because of Xander in Hogwarts. He was the first person to have asked her out, and ever since then, it always made her nervous to be asked out, like it was so shocking to be asked.

As she was in front of him she raised her brow and tilted her head with a shy smile.

"This better?" she asked softly.

Dorian silently swore to himself. You're just asking her out on a date. You're not asking for the world. Then why did it feel like it? He tried to mentally shake it off. But as soon as he reached out to touch her hand, his started tingling. He took a few seconds to just feel how soft her hand was in his, so small and delicate.

He straightened up and tried to look like anything other than an injured man. Rubbing his thumb against the back of her hand, he smiled softly. "So, will you have dinner with me?"

He didn't want to make it a big deal for her, but he really wanted her to say yes. Hoping that she wouldn't push him away, he looked up into her eyes.

Tess was surprised at how careful he was being, and she let out a small smile and sighed. Dinner? Well wasn't that interesting, but knowing her shift was staying until late she wondered if she could get Chale to move her time around. She wondered when it was the last time that she thought of Chale, and thing is she hadn't, she hadn't seen him since the meeting. Perhaps her crush was dwindling.

But looking at him, trying to comfort her by rubbing his thumb over her hand, and staring at him intently, she let out a grin and nodded.

"I'd love to" she replied shyly.

Dorian mirrored the smile, feeling like his heart was thrumming faster than normal. Looking down at his leg intentionally, he flexed it infront of him, wanting the skin move where the stitches used to be. It wasn't going to be a pretty scar, but it would be better since Tess cared for it.

He looked back up at her. "Well, now that my stitches are out, I'm no longer you're patient. So there's a plus." He tried making light of it, knowing that she still would need time getting used to the idea of them going on a date.

Deciding that he needed to get out of her way so she could work, he sighed. "Well I guess I'm gonna get booted out now. How 'bout you owl me when you have time off." He hoped off the table and lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles lightly, his eyes bright. Then he let hers fall to her side before he apparated out.