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in the mood for a melody
by leiascully
He had paged her, God only knew why after the night they'd had, and she was hardly in the mood for House's more-brilliant-than-thou attitude at the moment even if he had saved Ian. Even if she had seen the way he'd watched the boy, all that unexpected gentleness. She was grateful to House, but she was exhausted. She could thank him once they'd both had some sleep. Even so, she stepped into the elevator, wishing she could take off her shoes, but there were some downsides to being the female dean, and one of them was never being able to be caught in a moment of unprofessionalism.
The message had said something about the clinic, but once she got onto the floor, she just followed the music. She wasn't sure she had ever heard him play before, but it was unmistakeably House. He was playing some classical piece, lots of structure but touched with his own brand of melancholy, and the sonata segued into something bluesy as naturally as water running down a hill.
He looked up when she came in, but his fingers didn't stop moving over the keys. She came and leaned against the piano and he dragged his eyes over her.
"I do like that dress," he said, apropos of nothing.
"Why did you page me?"
"Come sit with me," he said, and there was a gentleness to his voice that she couldn't refuse. She sat at his left, smoothing her dress over her legs, and he played.
"I didn't know you played the piano," she said after a while. He was good, very good, surprisingly good, or unsurprisingly good considering how adept he was at anything he put his mind to.
"Didn't you? I thought you came to that club that once in Ann Arbor," he said, and then she remembered: the smoke, the martini in her hand, the rangy young man who kept his eyes closed as he played, except once to look at her across the room. It had seemed like a dream. Later, when she had met him properly as the legendary Greg House, she had thought she recognized the way he looked at her but couldn't place where she'd seen him before.
"I can't believe that you remember that," she said.
"Ah, Cuddy," he said. "Clearly you underestimate my capacity to recall the faces of pretty girls. You were very pretty." He glanced up at her and then swung his eyes back to the keyboard. "You still are."
The morning sun was high enough now to slant through the doors of the clinic. It must have been the warmth of the light bringing that tingle to her face. The sunlight fell across his face too, deepening the shadows under his eyes and turning his stubble into a halo around his mouth. He was smiling quietly to himself even though the music that rolled out under his hands was achingly sad, and she noticed he had dimples, deep enough to put your fingertip in, and had to fight down the urge to do it.
"Thanks for your help tonight," she said. "If you hadn't taken the case...I would have let him die."
"It was your night off," he said. "You deserved a night off. You had a perfectly reasonable diagnosis. But where you saw gastroenteritis, I saw my white whale. And anyway, I did take the case." He looked at her again. "Which you knew, as soon as I got up from the table. He didn't suffer at your hands. You delegated."
She shrugged. "You can't take away my guilt, House. He was my patient. I should have gone to him even if it had been something easily treatable. Instead I got all wrapped up in a stupid charity event."
"A stupid charity event that was helping make sure your hospital stays open. You and your guilt," he said.
"Very sexy, right?" she asked flippantly, and he smiled crookedly, his dimples deepening. She must have been tired; she could feel her heart beating under her breastbone, a little fluttery.
"Cuddy..." he said, and there was the hesitation in his tone that meant he was about to say something nice. She stilled on the bench beside him, very aware of the warmth of his shoulder close to hers, and the length of their thighs almost parallel. He let his hands come to rest on the keys. "Don't beat yourself up over this one. There was no reason to suspect anything but gastroenteritis. You can't save the world. That's what you hired me for." She let out a quick breath somewhere between a laugh and a snort. He bumped her shoulder gently with his and looked at her with that smile again, and she didn't look down.
"You're one hell of a delegator," he said. "Don't forget. I almost killed him too. I'm just an obsessive son of a bitch who happened to be right this time. Everyone needs backup; that's why I have a team and you have your staff. Your guilt is unnecessary. On the other hand, if you ever want to work some of it off...." He let his voice trail off suggestively, one eyebrow raised. She punched him lightly on the shoulder and he pretended to wince.
"Do you think you can let Ester go now?" she asked. He shrugged, let his fingers pick out a funny little tune.
"Depends on what comes next." He swung his hands up the piano in an elaborate rill. "Do you play, Cuddy?"
"The piano?"
"Backgammon," he said, his eyes sparkling. "Yes, the piano."
"No," she said, a little regretfully. "I had flute lessons for a while when I was younger, but I didn't keep up with it."
"Want to learn?"
She must have looked extremely skeptical, because he looked very amused, and took her hands and put them on the keys, arranging her fingers and adjusting her wrists. His fingers were strong and warm. She hoped he wouldn't notice the sudden goosebumps that prickled on her arms and across her collarbone.
"Hold your hands this way," he murmured, his fingers still around her wrists. "Then press this key, those keys together, these keys, and then these. Keep doing that, and I'll play something on top." He let go and watched her play it a few times; her wrists felt chilly where his fingers had been.
"You've got good hands, Cuddy. Just keep doing that."
She stifled a little rush of pleasure at his compliment and pressed the keys in order as he started playing on the other end of the keyboard, something very light and twinkly. They sounded good together, she thought, at least until she got distracted by the swing of his melody and the sight of his beautiful hands in her peripheral vision. They looked like doctor's hands should, and she wondered why she had never noticed how nicely articulated they were before. She pressed the wrong keys together and the music clashed, and House played a jumbly run that was clearly a crash and burn, but they were both laughing.
"That was nice," he said, letting his hands come to rest again, his fingers still arched on the keys. "Too bad we can't talk them into leaving this in here all the time."
"We could probably get a xylophone for your office if it'll get you to see patients," she said, and he smirked. Backlit by the sun, he looked mellow, almost happy, probably exhausted after the long difficult night, relaxed by the cigars and the poker and the open bar.
"I never," he said, and looked down at his hands. "I never thanked you for hiring me, Cuddy. I know I'm a pain in your ass, but I do love my job."
"Except when I put you in the clinic," she said.
"Except then," he agreed.
"You do good work," she said. It was surreal sitting at a piano with him, still wearing her dinner dress, him with his bow tie loose at the opened throat of his tux shirt. "You saved a little boy's life tonight." Her voice was too soft, she knew, and her face was too close to his. Where was the wit that would save her?
"I also kicked your ass at poker by proxy," he said, and his voice too was low. "Through Wilson, who has maybe the worst poker face I've ever seen."
"You're a talented man and you know us too well," she said, feeling vulnerable. She could smell his cologne. She was tired, and he was warm and solid, and it had been so long since she had been held. She had to fight the urge to lean into him, even though he was Gregory House, who refused to see patients and who made her life hell on an almost daily basis. Tonight she had seen him heal a child, and he had sat on Ian's bed as if he were any of her other doctors who cared about their patients. House talked a good game; he flirted with her harder than anyone ever had, but if she yielded to him he would either brush her off or let her seduce him, and she wasn't sure which she would be less able to live with in the morning. He had no middle ground.
"You look tired," he said quietly, putting his hand on her back where the fabric of her dress dipped low. His fingers brushed her skin and she was all goosebumps all over again. House was a man you had to give yourself entirely over to and you never recovered from it. There was always some deep and desperate longing no matter how angry you had been. She had seen it in Stacy. She had seen it Wilson. In some degree she had seen it in herself and it terrified her, and here he was with his palm warm against her back and she knew there was a softer side to him. She had always had a thing for complicated geniuses.
"I am tired," she said, and to talk to him now she had to tip her head up and show him the pale line of her throat. "Aren't you?"
"Saving lives is a pretty exhausting business," he said, and it would be so, so easy just to put two fingers under his chin and draw him down to her.
"Take the day off," she said instead, against the brief flicker of desire to take him home with her, watch him lay the pieces of his tux across her bedroom chair, wanting to see the shape of his body under her comforter.
"Are you going home?" he asked.
"I've got clothes in my office," she said. It felt as if it took a long time to get the words out. Time was moving slowly.
"After being up all night? If you can hack it, I can hack it. I think I've earned a nap on your couch, though."
"Don't you usually sleep on the floor?" She was lightheaded with the warm fumes of the cologne and cigars that rose from the open neck of his shirt. He seemed to be drawing deep breaths of her. The rhythm of his chest was comforting.
"In the mood for company," he said lightly, the familiar flirty banter. She thought: all the comforts of House with none of the committments, no midnight agonies over his latest asshole comment or how much he meant it when he was endearing. His thumb was moving gently over her back as if he didn't even mean to be stroking the ridges of her spine. "Plus, it's bad for my leg."
"All right," she said, rewarded by his smile. She would close the blinds, pretend she was out. She would watch her best doctor be still and peaceful for once, and if she were daring, she would nudge him over instead of curling up on her other couch, or in one of the chair.
"Unexpected," he said. "Need help with your zipper, Cuddy?" He let his hand drift down her back until it rested on the bench on a fold of her dress. "Seems a little tricky."
"You wish," she said. "Go shower first. Right now you're like James Bond after a bender."
"You should join me. Reward for your extremely apt simile."
She smiled. Their faces were still so close. The sunlight was still pouring into the room around his head and it dazzled her. "I will see you in my office," she said, rearranging her skirt and standing up slowly. "You don't snore, do you, Dr. House?"
He lifted his chin. "No." She could feel his eyes on her all the way across the room. It was a new thing and a good thing between them. She would learn to appreciate it. And maybe, just maybe, she would buy a beginner's book and start taking piano lessons, to keep the gentleness of this night, Ian saved and House redeemed and Wilson triumphant, in the learned curve of her wrists and fingers over the keys.
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A/N: Title's from Billy Joel's "Piano Man". The rest is because I always wanted to see the explanation behind that still from "All In".
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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