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Who Needs Pictures?
by PhantomErik
It had been a long week for Dr. Gregory House, but it was finally the weekend, and he had managed to survive. And now he was trying to find a way to keep his mind off of all the events of the week by finding something to do around his home. In his insanity, he had decided that cleaning and organizing might be a good idea. And that is why he was currently sitting on the floor and digging through piles of books and separating them into different piles.
He had managed to make it to the furniture store and bought several large bookcases that had been delivered and assembled that morning. Three in the living room, two in the bedroom. Maybe he could manage to fit his multitude of books and medical journals into the spaces, and thus not have them littering every other surface. After 4 hours of painful lugging and seperating, he had managed to get all the books into the bedroom, and separated them into three piles. Those to keep, those he would sell to the used book stores, and those that were too damaged to keep or sell, in other words, trash.
He was making a last scavenger hunt through the house for any books that might have missed his initial round up when he found it. Buried in the bottom of a dresser drawer he found an old one-time use camera.
There's an old Kodak camera in my dresser drawer.
I ran across it just this afternoon.
And I realized that I don't ever use it anymore.
In fact last time I did, I think it was with you.
We were down in Cozumel we had the whole beach to ourselves.
And it's crazy now to think that it's all there on that film.
It had been during a trip he had taken with Stacy before the infarction. They realized when they got to the hotel that they didn't have any cameras. They had laughed about it and bought a cheap camera from the gift shop. They had never developed it though. It was probably his responsibility. Use up the rest of the pictures and then get it developed. He'd never done it of course.
And I could take it to the store to be developed, but what for?
I can still see everything just fine.
Who needs pictures with a memory like mine.
Standin' there I couldn't help but think about,
Everything that might be on that roll.
I think it even has another trip we took.
I guess that must've been at least five years ago.
Come to think of it, he had remembered the camera when they went on another trip, just before the break up. He was attending some conference or another down in Baton Rouge, and Stacy had come along in a last ditch attempt to make their relationship work. But at that point he had already pushed her as far away as he could.
We were down in Baton Rouge, and there wasn't much to do.
So we drove into New Orleans every afternoon.
And I swear that you would think that it was only yesterday,
'cause I can still see everything just fine.
Who needs pictures with a memory like mine?
She had left soon after that last trip, unable to put up with him anymore. She didn't even take everything, or maybe she left things on purpose, expecting him to throw them out. Truth was he hadn't done much of that since she had left. He just stuck the little reminders out of his sight, and forgot them. Until he found them by accident such as today. He also remembered the box he had put at the top of the closet, not wanting to see the contents, but not wanting to throw them away.
Somewhere in my closet there's a cardboard box just sittin' on a shelf.
It's full of faded memories and it's been there ever since the night you left.
Oh, just forgotten photographs to remind me of the past.
But I can still see everything just fine.
Who needs pictures with a memory like mine?
For a few minutes he held the camera in his hands, the books and the cleaning forgotten. So many memories and so much emotion in such a tiny object. He should throw it away, get it out of his life, just like he had thrown Stacy out of his life. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. And so the camera found it's way back into the bottom of his dresser drawer, buried under old t-shirts and folded socks.
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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 Fox Television, 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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