Disclaimer: Consider this disclaimed.

Daybreak

The CD player sits innocently on the table when he comes in, and he brushes his fingers lightly over it, glancing over the stack of CDs next to it. He wonders briefly who left it there, but dismisses the thought. Their loss – it's his now. Or at least his department's. Which amounts to the same thing anyway. Picking up first CD on the pile, he jabs the 'open' button, suddenly impatient, and places it carelessly into position. It falls neatly into place, the shiny reflective surface gleaming up at him. He presses play, and waits for the song to load.

As the first strains of music filter reluctantly through the speakers, his team walks in, Foreman in the lead, with Cameron trailing behind. Chase is picking at his tie and scuffing his shoes. He glances curiously at the CD player, but makes no comment.

"We have a patient."

He isn't really sure which one of them said it – which is slightly worrying, considering that Cameron's a girl, Chase has an Australian accent, and Foreman … well, Foreman sounds like Foreman too. But in his defence, it's not really that important, is it? But isn't that what he does? He notices things – things other people consider unimportant, but intrigue him. But how can a simple mundane thing like which one of his team announced the patient interest him? He considers for a second, before abandoning the thought into his cupboard of forsaken thought processes. It lurks in the corner with other trivial things like 'Did Wilson really mean it when he said I looked bad unshaven?' and other more important things like 'Was it really Stacy's fault?' and other such things that he'll never admit to having considered. It's much more fun to be an insensitive ass.

Foreman is writing the symptoms on the board, and Chase and Cameron are throwing diagnoses at him. His writing is haphazardly scrawled across the board, and he can't help but wince, transferring his gaze to the floor instead. Foreman's black shiny shoe – what happened to his sneakers? They showed good taste – winked the light off into his eyes. Up and down the shoe tapped, keeping in perfect time with the music. Foreman would have been an ace drummer, he decides. Looking up at the other man's face again, he sees that the lines that usually hold a place of honour on Foreman's forehead have smoothened out gently. He can still see the faint outlines there, but they are shadows – memories of a time to come. As Foreman steps around from the board to face the rest of the team, he notices that his employee is gently and subtly – very subtly – swaying to the music. If he concentrates hard enough he can almost make out a wistful look in Foreman's eye. Maybe he's thinking of his girlfriend, or maybe he's thinking of his mother. Perhaps he is remembering a time when all he needed was his mother telling him that everything was alright and he'd believe her. Or maybe he's remembering a time of hatred and prejudice … and security and warmth and all those clichés that he scorns. Or maybe he's just appreciating the music. Who knew?

He looks over at Cameron, who is sitting closest to the board. She is holding herself rigidly, and she is clenching more than usual. There is an almost-smile lingering on her lips, and she is mouthing something – but he is not sure if she's thinking about the patient or if she's remembering the lyrics to the song. Her face isn't blank, he decides. There's a strange expression in the corners of her eyes and in the little twist of her mouth, and he's not sure if it's ironic, bitter, a mix of both, or just some emotion that he can't identify. She blinks, and speaks, and suddenly he's not sure if she was ever mouthing song lyrics, or if he was just imagining things – he dares not think 'hallucinating'. But then she shifts in her seat, and now he's certain that she's holding herself back. She wants to sing, to dance, to laugh, he can tell, but she's holding herself back, for some unknown reason that fascinates and repels him at the same time. Or maybe he's gotten it wrong, and all she wants to do is to walk over to the cabinet and make a pot of coffee. Which she promptly gets up to do, so maybe it was that after all.

He shrugs and tells her to pour him a cup too. She rolls her eyes, but he knows she will.

Chase has looked over at Cameron as well. He is being particularly vocal today; a sign that House takes to mean that he is either particularly relaxed or particularly tense. Judging by his white knuckles on the pen that he is holding – like a dagger – he assumes that it is the latter. And judging by the worried glances he is sending towards the CD player, the cause of his stress, is not the near fatal state of the patient, but the music playing in the background. Typical really, he grouses with a slight shake of his head. There is no wistful expression in Chase's eyes or face, just a hard, cold expression that he can almost fathom. Chase looks over at him, and releases the grip on his pen, clutching it casually instead. The effect is ruined by the red marks left on his hand from gripping the pen too hard. Chase looks away to suggest something to the waiting Foreman, and he knows that he has just missed his chance to make a scathing remark, but maybe that's all right, because he knows how the conversation will go.

"Is the music scaring the little Brit?"

"I'm Australian. And no. It was my father's favourite song."

Even in his head the words sound stilted, awkward and out of character, so he's glad that he didn't say anything.

He looks around at his team and smiles bitterly to see how their dynamic has changed from the presence of one thing – music. It's funny, he thinks, how something that he's always perceived as liberating can be seen as threatening to Chase, can place Foreman into a partial reverie, and play on Cameron's emotions. He looks down and pops a Vicodin, suddenly tired. Reaching over, he jabs the CD player deliberately off the table so that it crashes on the floor below. He doesn't even bother to look down to see if it has broken – it's music has stopped, and that's all he cares about.

The team look at him, startled, but he runs his hand over his eyes instead, suddenly conscious of how dark it is. He doesn't want to play mind-games right now – the sun has only just risen. Mind-games should come later – right now he just wants routine.

Complacency?