After the Senate passed a short-term bill to keep federal agencies funded through mid-November, it sent the measure to the House, just three days before a possible government shutdown.
But the House was done for the day. And House Speaker John Boehner and his leadership team appear to have no plan to avoid the shutdown.
"I think our members still want to fight. What that means, I don't know. I don't know that they know," one senior House GOP leadership aide told CNN.
House Republican leaders huddled on Thursday, but they won't meet to discuss the next steps with their members until Saturday afternoon.
The House had only one series of votes on Friday morning and members trickled out of the Capitol around 11 a.m. and left for the day, more than an hour before the Senate began voting on the spending bill.
In past down-to-the wire showdowns over government funding, there were quiet backroom discussions among party leaders and top aides in the House and Senate to come up with some sort of face-saving compromise. But this time there were no signs those talks were happening.
The one thing Boehner made clear on Thursday was that the House will not accept the Senate version of the spending bill that stripped out the provision that defunds Obamacare.
He indicated the House will add something to the bill and send it back to the Senate, but refused to tip his hand on what exactly that will be.
There is no shortage of opinions, but no signs of any consensus on what the House GOP should do next and just how far it should play out the clock before the midnight deadline on Monday night.
Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole suggested the House focus on adding one provision to the spending bill that has had some bipartisan support in the Senate -- a repeal of the tax on medical device manufacturers that helps fund part of Obamacare.
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