She'd forgotten how much she hated traffic during major events at the hospital. Egomaniacal doctors, already tipsy from the airport lounge, driving overly expensive and powerful rental cars. Tonight, however, was doubly special due to the rain coursing down at a steady rate. She sigh as yet another person cut her off. This was not a good indicator for the rest of the evening.

She nearly slipped as she trotted the half-block between her parked car and House's apartment. Even with the large umbrella she held, she could feel her dress being ruined. "Damn you, Wilson," she muttered for what seemed like the millionth time. Finally reaching the sheltering haven of his building, she slowed her pace. He never cared about being on time, so why should she?

She rolled her eyes at the garbled response behind the door after she knocked, reluctantly letting herself in. House was in the middle of a rant about ties and drinks which she paid little attention to as she meanderingly perused her surroundings.

True to his nature, he'd changed little of the place since the last time she'd seen it, nearly eight years ago. Her eyes skimmed over book titles, wondering which he had read and when. Her path took her nearer and nearer to the piano, which, unlike everything else, looked extremely well taken care of. A pang of longing shot through her spine, and she could barely restrain her hand from reaching out to caress the smooth surface.

Suddenly, she stood up straighter. There was silence. She turned around to see an astonished House ridiculously clad in a white tuxedo shirt and a pair of boxers with light blue stripes. "You're not Wilson." She could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks, but she was also amused. He would try to spin this, she knew. Either that, or avoid it completely. Knowing him was sometimes so...comforting.

Her response gave him enough time to devise a plan, however temporary, and then he was gone again. As he questioned her, voice somewhat muffled through the semi-closed bedroom door, she responded absently, her attention refocused on the instrument before her.

It was as though she could no longer think - merely feel and act. She sank onto the bench, hands nervously gripping the smooth wood. Gently and delicately she grazed the keys with her right hand. Their glossy perfection caused her to sigh as a dozen memories fought to be recalled behind her eyes.

She told herself to get up, to walk away from the piano. But the rain. And her dress. And the memories. It had been so long since she'd felt a song coursing through her. Why had it been so long? Bringing her left hand up to join her right in a weightless dance above the keys, she closed her eyes. It was too much, but still not enough. Unconsciously, she slipped off one of her new shoes. The metal pedal was cool and resistant against her foot.

I dream, she threw her thought out at the piano through her hesitant fingers, letting go. She'd played this song so many times in her life. She'd played it to achieve perfection, to obtain approval. She'd won a gold trophy once for playing it, had searched her mother's face for pride. She'd played it for David - both in the beginning and at the end. She'd played it only once after his death, back when she couldn't get out of bed for a week. She was surprised at how well she remembered it. And though it wasn't perfect, she felt it perfectly (perhaps for the first time ever) - of that, she was sure.

After she finished she felt something inside her release itself, felt something else take its place. House was giving her a look of alarm and unease - she almost laughed. His assumptions about her had only ever gotten him into trouble instead of saving him from it.

"Thirteen years." She would offer him something. Something in return for her invasion of his sacred instrument. "Mr. Harrison's living room. Always smelled like mothballs. And the keys always stuck." She wanted to give him more. She wasn't sure if she knew how any longer. Wasn't sure if he could accept. If he would.

"You know," he tried to sound deceptively noncommittal, but she could feel his pressing intensity. "That piece is a duet."

"Oh, I know," she would keep it light. "Mr. Harrison always made me play the lower part. Said I didn't have enough legato and phrasing in me for the melody."

"He...was an idiot," he said. She wanted him to ask her why she had never told him that she played. But then again, she was glad he didn't, for she didn't know the answer. She wanted him to ask why that song, wanted to tell him the "when's" and the "why's." But at the same time, she didn't. She knew he wouldn't.

He was sitting next to her. Her body was reacting to directions from somewhere deep within that she hadn't realized was still functioning. Hands, feet, ears - it was sensually heartbreaking and fulfilling all at once. So, she thought, in the few moments before feeling and music overtook her mind, it will be here.

It came, the second time, like a rush. Notes and phrases skipped and scattered until there was nothing. And everything. She couldn't breathe as the last note faded into the history of Them. IdreamIdreamIdreamIdream, it drummed in her head, keeping her sane, keeping her lucid.

What had she done.

She turned her head toward him at the very last moment of his uncertainty. He knew something now, she realized in the seconds before They and Them. But he'd always known so much more than she about them both and what it meant and what it was. It.

When his lips questioned her, she froze for the merest of seconds. Then she leaned into him in response. Her hands, which had been clenching the bench and the piano relaxed and made their way up to cup his jaw. Near, so near, were her hands to touching him - she could swear she felt the prickly bristles on his cheek - when he pulled away.

It was smooth, it was swift. As though he had changed the channel on his mental tv. "Wilson will think we died," he muttered, maybe, or something to that effect. His back was her only companion as she floated down to reality, like a blazing autumn leaf fallen too soon. He was out the door and down the hall before she could get her shoe on.

When he walked back in to get his cane, she was still in a haze.