Author's notes: This is my take of the piano scene that was supposed to take place in All In but was cut out. So if you haven't seen the episode yet, there might be some spoilers here.

Prelude In E Minor
By Carolina

He let his head drop backwards, reveling in the soft sounds the keys produced.

He was aware of the group of people slowing their pace outside, cocking their heads to the side and enjoying the music while simultaneously wondering if this piano man, with the silver cane resting on a truss and the look of utter yet distrustful peace on his face, was a new feature in the hospital.

They stood there for a moment and he played, and soon they left, and he felt the sting of loneliness bite him again. He didn't mind an audience, didn't mind the absurd look of delight on their faces as he reproduced the work of Mussorgsky, but the piano was a lonely instrument for a lonely man, not to be ogled at by ignorant strangers who, without a doubt, couldn't carry a tune if they had an extra pair of hands.

Outside, members of the maintenance team were beginning to clean up the mess the drunken doctors had left behind, shaking their heads at the amount of alcohol wasted, and as their brooms and mops glided through the floors House felt the familiar gleam of pain on his right thigh. He ignored it, opting for striking the keys with much more force than necessary. The piano had always been his escape, a distraction, a harmless way to take 10 hits of LSD and go on a happy trip, ignore the people around him, the seconds that ticked by, the life he had begrudgingly grown accustomed to.

It worked for him. It would work for him, until the throbbing on his thigh would be aggravated by something unfamiliar and unfathomable, and he would be forced to stop.

Mussorgsky morphed into Schumann.

His fingers paced slower but the intensity remained. His Opus 16 was midway interrupted by a slight breeze behind him; the synchronized tapping of heels in tempo with the beat of the piece.

House felt her sit next to him on the piano bench, didn't have to open his eyes because he didn't need visual confirmation. Always could feel her. There was something distinctive about her that allowed him to, an aura of strength and determination and just enough loneliness to provoke familiarity. Much different from Wilson's, which rejected the notion of loneliness feverishly.

And then there was the perfume. Eau de Cock Tease. He could smell it a mile away.

He continued playing, ignoring her, as she no doubt smiled next to him, watching his fingers leap from one key to the next. He didn't know how much time passed, but eventually, the piano let out a loud screech and he stopped, opened his eyes and let his head drop forward, pressing his lips together, his eyes on fire again.

"You enjoy putting a damper on my--"

"Vibrating?" she offered playfully, her index finger resting on a G.

"No, but nice."

Cuddy smiled, playing another random note and watching as the vein on his temple twitched in response. He wanted to stop her from defiling the precious instrument, but something prevented him and he opted for letting her express herself for a few moments with the keys, random notes that sounded angry and frustrated, an intermission of furrowed eyebrows, a discontent sigh, before her movements gentled and she settled into an indignant, detuned rhythm.

Eventually, she stopped. He stared at her fingers, long and feminine, and waited. Her hands looked lost in a sea of white keys, unsure of their next movement, out of place. Self-consciously recoiling.

She had never been good at the piano.

Finally, she took a deep breath and looked up at him. "You did good."

It was the best apology she could offer and he took it, nodding his head barely and caressing with his index finger E to F to E again. Suddenly he remembered Christmas and Chinese food.

"You didn't have to lie, but--"

"Oh, I find it comforting to stay in character," House replied. "Less work that way. You know me."

"Of course," Cuddy said dryly. "The thought of you being serious, and honest and coming to me emotionally naked is so shocking I don't even know why I bother."

"I'm sorry, you lost me after naked," House drawled suggestively, his eyes wider and bluer, palpably tracing the curvature of her cleavage before they settled on the white keys again.

Cuddy shook her head and looked away, smiling mirthlessly. "I'm just saying—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," House said dismissively. "I would've gone to you, you would've dismissed me, I would've broken the rules, you would've yelled, I would've pressed, diagnosed the kid, won. House: 1,500, Cuddy: 0. Frankly, I find it dumbfounding that you'd come down here and blame me for your inability to call in a correct diagnosis."

She looked at him, frowning slightly at the realization that she should've felt insulted by his words. Truthfully, years of tongue lashings and nasty remarks had created for her an incredible coating of House tolerance.

"Frankly, I find it dumbfounding that you think your numbers are that good," she said off-handedly, caressing the word Baldwin embedded on the piano.

House looked down and smiled appreciatively at the comment. Her finger moved elegantly and seductively against the wood and he sighed, looking away and feeling that... thing that seemed to appear whenever Cuddy did or said something inappropriately sexy. He imagined she had no idea what she was doing, of course, as women very rarely realized when they were up to no good. Lack of intention wasn't supposed to be a turn on, but something about her ignorance made him weary and he frowned displeasingly.

Cuddy breathed, her eyes jumping from black note to black note, completely oblivious, as usual. "I didn't come here to fight with you."

"Why did you come here?" he said grumpily, annoyed at himself for allowing her to get to him like this.

"To be civil. It's what adults do."

"Really? Sounds boring."

"Don't knock it till you try it," she commented.

He gave her a cynic laugh, followed by a begrudging frown. He could be civil. He was civil every second of every hour of every day that he didn't press her up against her desk and fucked her brains out. She had no idea how civil he could be.

"Do you know why I make you miserable?"

He sat back and crossed his legs, exaggeratingly faking interest in her response. "Boy, this is gonna be insightful, Miss Alcott, isn't it?"

"Because you love it," she replied, ignoring his sarcasm. "It gets you all riled up, House, admit it. As soon as I disagree with you, you... go and do that thing you do, and you come back with a correct diagnosis."

"Hm," House hummed, pondering her words. "So every time I save a life, it's not because of my training, or my intelligence, or my experience, or my incredibly powers of deduction, or even the decades of technological advances. I save lives because you... try to prevent me from saving lives."

"Call me your muse."

He chuckled mirthlessly and rolled his eyes. "If I didn't know any better, Doctor Cuddy, I'd say your spine is not going to last long if you keep kissing your own ass like that."

"I learned from the master," she said.

"Yeah, who knew?" House replied, feeling somehow lost in the conversation. Drunk. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling where Cuddy was concerned.

"In any case," Cuddy continued. "Thank you, for... widely being known as an incredible pain in the ass and rightly so."

"You're welcome."

She smiled and looked down, and inexplicably, he felt a light sense of comfort in their conversation. Her theory made no sense whatsoever, and yet, he found there was something truthful about it. If Cuddy wasn't there to push him, to get him "riled up," to challenge him, would he be able to do his job? It was dark, it was twisted, it was oh, so wrong and yet...

Her shoulders began to hunch over and she leaned slightly towards him, lack of sleep and too much alcohol shattering her senses. He didn't say anything, and as she took a deep breath and straightened herself up, no doubt planning on leaving, his fingers began to toy with the soft stroke of the keys again, his mind going blank, before they began to play one more time.

He felt her stiffen slightly when the first notes reverberated through the room.

House didn't stop, though he wanted to. Instead, he let his head slightly drop backwards, reveling in the soft sounds the keys produced.

There was a time, too long ago, when his fingers weren't callused and his hair not quite as gray, when the Preludes elicited much more than the memories of his old, German piano teacher, sitting next to him ruler in hand. Back then, the Preludes promised something far greater than a bigger piece, an oratorio. The Preludes, he'd found, usually played overture to the sweetest sounds, the moans of pleasure, words of affection that were now buried under too many years of separation, and loneliness, and Vicodin. The Preludes didn't fail. They never disappointed, not when she'd been around.

He closed his eyes and saw her now, as she looked too long ago, when her hair was much longer and her eyes not quite as stressed. He let his head drop forward and smiled at her on his bed, her body naked, her eyes content, entranced by the very same adagio.

"I love this piece," she would say each time, her voice not quite as raspy as it is today, letting her head rest on his pillow and listening, delighting. He'd watch her as his fingers stroked the keys, watch her head sway from side to side, watch her left foot slowly stroking her right calf.

Each time he would feel a little bit more like the flute player beguiling the snake.

When the piece achieved its crescendo she'd look up with her eyes closed and let her head fall back, living and breathing the music, exposing her neck, her chest, all of herself. His eyes would grow darker then, watching her from the piano bench, letting the piece fall from its climax and into its conclusion, feeling young, drunk, and out of control.

He'd finish with a sense of bitter-sweetness. He always felt an inexplicable sadness whenever a piece ended, but the promises of the Preludes were sweet and too enticing to pass. He'd put the lid back over the keys walk over to the bed, looming over her as she would smile over her bare shoulder. He'd kiss the soft spot between her shoulder blades, mold his body to hers as his hand re-played the piece on the curve of her body, using her ribs as keys.

She'd turn around and face him with smoky blue eyes, her movements slow and seductive, her fingers soft and acquainted, and he'd make love to her to the echoing sounds of Chopin still trembling under his fingertips.

A simple piece.

Soft.

Peaceful.

Everything they were not.

He never played that piece for anyone else. Never played the piece again, period. The memories were sweet but the present realization bitter. What they'd had. What they lost. What replaced it. Chopin was but a distant memory of youthful foolishness, of unsolicited laughter, deluded promises of infinity and forevermore. They knew better now. Time saw to it that they did.

House finished now, as he would years ago, and even before he opened his eyes he felt her hand on his hand. He followed the trail of her arm up, up, and found her eyes staring at the keys distantly, remembering, as he had, who they used to be.

He wondered if she was going to cry, as she would sometimes when he played that song for her, but too many years had passed and she was different now, stronger, accepting. The thought of it made him somewhat bitter, but he, too, had changed. Drastically. He couldn't expect her to be the same woman, girl, she was 20 years ago, no matter how many times he wished he could wake up in her embrace, the faint sounds of Chopin playing in the background.

He looked away, and as his thumb moved to pin one of her fingers to his hand she retrieved it, unsure of this latest development; too weary, too delicate.

House sought her eyes and when she looked at him his stare intensified, futilely attempting to drown blue on blue, feeling 23 again, feeling 31 again, wondering if it was possible for Preludes to lead nowhere. He'd always taken comfort in the fact that they do. It's a rule. You could count on that as you could count on the passing of the days. Otherwise they wouldn't be called Preludes.

This time...

She looked away first. For House, the victory didn't feel as good as it should have.

"I have to go home," she declared needlessly, unnecessarily caressing the row of white keys before she rose.

House looked at her, and though her smile was warm her expression evinced her emotional deluge.

"Get some sleep."

Her hand lingered on his shoulder a second and House felt the familiar burn there, fingers roughed by the passing of time, words heavy and unspoken, an entire suite waiting to be composed and played.

Her steps had always had their very own special beat, and as he watched her walk out of the room House felt the familiar gleam of pain on his right thigh intensify. This time, he reached for a Vicodin.

The End