Schroeder rolled around in bed, slightly annoyed and painfully uncomfortable. His bedside clock told him it was just past midnight. When he was younger, and couldn't sleep, his trusty piano had been right at his bedside. He would play to his heart's content, and often woke up slumped over his piano, a pain in his back, but well rested. Now, things weren't so simple. Yes, he had an apartment, and he no longer risked waking his parents at ridiculous hours of the night, but he had a far worse roommate now.

His decision to move in with Lucy van Pelt had been purely economical. He needed a roommate, she needed a place to go. She'd taken him up on his offer, and within three days, she had taken the empty room and signed an agreement to pay half the rent. Fortunately, Schroeder's bank account remained in the positive numbers. He could go to school without breaking his back with a full time job. Unfortunately, his late night piano playing sessions had come to an end, resulting in many a sleepless night.

"I'll just play quietly," Schroeder told himself, throwing off the covers and getting out of bed. Lucy was a heavy sleeper. He wouldn't wake her if he just played quietly. He tip-toed into the living room where his piano sat, calling to him. "Just the first movement," he told himself. Six minutes would be plenty of time to lull him into a state tired enough for sleep.

Schroeder sat at his piano and inhaled deeply before starting, instantly feeling calmer as he played. His piece of choice, just as it had been in childhood, was Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Something about the music paired with the night time put him right to sleep when he was young, and he hoped that now it would have the same effect, minus the angry parents threatening to lock the piano up at night. Of course now, it would be an angry Lucy threatening to put an ad on Craigslist while he was at work.

He had to admit, it was nice being able to play without looking up and seeing Lucy leaned over on his piano. A habit she'd never kicked, Lucy would spend much of her time getting her fingerprints all over his piano and just...staring. She didn't flirt much anymore, or even speak. She just leaned over and watched him play, only speaking up when he was finished. Schroeder didn't mind Lucy anymore. Her presence was comforting as of late, but every now and again, it was nice to be alone. Just him and the spirit of his beloved idol.

There was a creak from the hallway, and Schroeder sighed. So much for alone. He continued playing, pretending he hadn't heard Lucy open her door. He ignored her footsteps coming down the hall, focusing on the keys he was playing. The piece was drawing to a close, and any second, he would look up and Lucy would say something flirty.

Only Lucy didn't go around the piano to lean over.

Instead, she sat beside him, watching him as he played the last notes of the piece. When he finished, he looked over at her. "I'm sorry I woke you," Schroeder said quickly. If he apologized enough, maybe she wouldn't be too crabby.

"You didn't wake me, you blockhead," Lucy replied, stifling a yawn. "I couldn't sleep."

"You too, huh?" Schroeder asked.

She nodded, and idly traced her fingers on the edge of the piano right underneath the elegant ivory and ebony keys. Her eyes trailed up, noticing no sheet music. Of course Schroeder didn't need it. He hadn't for a while now.

"Play another one," Lucy requested.

She recognized the melody, noticing him continue with the same piece from before…

"No, no, no," Lucy spoke up. "You play that one all of the time. Do something different for once." With her lips pursed, she tapped them with a single finger in thought until she perked up. "What about that one with the girl's name in it?"

Schroeder sighed, playing the first few notes of the symphony she had in mind. "Do you mean Fur Elise?" he asked. Albeit a little upbeat for the late evening, he continued to play anyway. Lucy watched him play, keeping quiet for once. Normally, she would blab on and on about his obsession with Beethoven anytime he was even near his piano, so her silence was a bit off-putting, yet at the same time, relaxing.

She seemed almost awed when the piece became cheery and sped up, and she watched his fingers speed across the keys with her mouth slightly agape. She restored her stony composure when he returned to the melody the piece was known for, and Schroeder was certain if he brought it up, Lucy would deny having ever been impressed in the slightest. Not that she had any reason to be impressed. He'd been playing Beethoven since he developed the fine motor skills to do so.

Schroeder finished the piece, and the silence that followed put him on edge. He used to love the silence that came after he finished playing, but since moving in with Lucy, he couldn't stand sitting in silence for too long.

"Should I play more?" he finally asked.

"Yeah," Lucy replied. "I mean, if you want. Just no more Beethoven," she added, going for the air of indifference.

Schroeder tapped the edge of the piano, trying to think of something else to play. There was a whole repertoire of music stored away in his head. He'd graduated from Juilliard; he knew good music. There was Bach, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Vivaldi, the list went on and on. But tonight, none of them fit the part. What part was that exactly? The silent liveliness between them, the swinging pendulum of potential.

As he thought, and considered, and pondered, Schroeder found himself idly tapping the keys in a lackadaisical sense, creating an offbeat short symphony of nothingness. However, there was something distant in the melody that caused him to perk up, to pause for a moment.

"Don't you have any of your own pieces?" Lucy asked. "Or did music school teach you nothing but how to play music made by guys who have been dead for, like, hundreds of years?"

With a hint of frown, Schroeder realized that it was only a matter of time - some things never changed, especially with Lucy van Pelt. A sigh escaped him as he brushed off the not-so-subtle rudeness of the comment, and he thought to himself. Aside from impromptu stints and forced pieces for class, what did he write?

Truly, and deeply - something that struck a chord in his heart?

Nothing.

Nothing that meant anything. He wrote nothing down of his own. Twenty-three and a failed artist. Beethoven was celebrated before that age; and where was Schroeder? Here, performing for an audience of one in an apartment building at some ungodly hour of the night.

Yet as he ran his fingers across the piano, one of the notes stuck out.

Just because he never officially wrote it didn't mean it wasn't a masterpiece, a work of his own.

"Let's see if you recognize this one," Schroeder said, beginning to play a very lively and upbeat tune that made Lucy perk up in the twilight hours of the morning; a song full of sunshine that almost made her want to dance. A song that sent her back to days of Christmas pageants and gatherings with friends.

Of course she recognized it; and remembered the nights she'd stand in the far left corner of the stage, snapping her fingers and tapping her feet, or drape herself across Schroeder's toy piano, watch with amazement as his fingers flew. Sometimes, she'd even join in with that stupid dog - how he played an upright bass, she'll never know. Regardless of how or why, Lucy knew this tune, it was one of her favorites that Schroeder played, right up there with Four Seasons and Fur Elise … yet this piece didn't have a name.

As for Schroeder - how he missed this piece. Dressed in a bed sheet as a ghost, wrapped up in a sweater, or just lazing about like now, this song always came back to him when needed most. For either a party, a get-together with friends, or just when he needed cheering up, it was there for him-

-much like a old friend.

The memories that came with this song were both cherished and confusing. Such as when sometimes Lucy would fawn over him when he played this, and other times, she'd stomp off, kicking his piano for good measure.

Why he held this tune to his heart for so long was beyond him. But perhaps it was like a friendly ghost, sweeping in only when it felt like it was needed. A smile was stuck on Schroeder's face as he ended the song with a flurry of fading notes, and he couldn't help it, he stammered and froze when he noticed Lucy's gaze stuck on him.

"Whoa there, Maestro," she teased, with a smirk. "This isn't a concert hall."

"You asked for something original," Schroeder said as means of defense. "That was original, wasn't it?"

"If that's the only original piece you've ever written, you'll never be like Beethoven," Lucy teased. Schroeder shrugged. It was true, one original piece that he wrote when he was just a kid was far from the Beethoven-approved standard he'd set for himself, but it was something. A start, no matter how small, was still a start.

"It has character," Schroeder said finally. "It's old, but with some work I think it could really be something,"

"It's already something," Lucy said, reaching out and touching the keys gently. She didn't play anything- Schroeder didn't even think she knew how to play- but she did leave her hand lingering there for a while. "I even think it's better than Beethoven,"

"Nothing is better than Beethoven," Schroeder mocked being offended, but even he couldn't keep the smile off his face. Lucy rolled her eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder, her eyelids fluttering. Normally, Schroeder would push her away, cry out in disgust, and storm off, but this was different than her flirting. She wasn't batting her eyes at him, she was just sleepy. She wasn't trying to be close to him, she was just resting. Remembering the time of night, and what he had originally come to his piano to do, Schroeder went to continue "Moonlight Sonata", but Lucy shook her head the second he played the first few notes.

"I said no more Beethoven," she said while stifling a yawn. Schroeder rolled his eyes and thought for a moment, deciding on a piece by Claude Debussy; "Clair de Lune", seeing how it was one of Lucy's favorites, though she would never admit to really liking anything he played.

He could see Lucy smile out of the corner of his eye as he played, her eyes closed in what Schroeder hoped was her way of appreciating the music. Or she could just be falling asleep. It was nearing one in the morning, after all.

As always, Schroeder lost himself in the music. It was a little difficult playing with Lucy's head on his shoulder, but he was nothing if not a professional. He powered through and played on, moving his shoulder as little as possible so as not to disturb Lucy. He poured his heart into the piece, as he always did, and it wasn't until he played the final notes that he realized Lucy really had fallen asleep.

The smile had slipped from her face, replaced with the neutral expression of sleep, and her head was poorly supported on his shoulder. Schroeder couldn't help but smile. She wasn't too bad when she was sleeping. She was quiet, peaceful, and, Schroeder almost hated to admit it, she was kind of pretty when she wasn't making an effort to look crabby.

With her ebony hair now long and curlier than ever, falling into her face and frizzy, the palest of freckles daring to show on her soft complexion, and a hint of a sleepy smile on her face; it was such a shame that her brown eyes, sometimes dark as chocolate and other times light and sweet as amber, were closed. No one could really deny it - growing up had done wonders to Lucy van Pelt. Even if she still had a crooked nose and a scar over her lip from playground fights, she was something close to beautiful.

Schroeder didn't feel any shame in this realization, for he knew since they were teenagers, and starting to go their separate ways.

Yet perhaps he could blame the late hours of the evening for the thought that this felt right.

Lucy hanging all over his piano was unprofessional; but having her share the bench with him, watch him up close was much better. It didn't seem annoying and he didn't think of her as a nuisance, just a bystander. Like those who would throw him a few dollars when he played in bars for quick side cash - that's what Lucy seemed like. But in a good way.

Really, though, his thoughts were fuzzy, it was one in the morning. He'd have to rethink this all in the morning… if he even remembered it.

There was just one thing keeping him from going to bed - Lucy's head, perched on his shoulder, and her snores echoing through their apartment. If he woke her up, she'd have his head. But he didn't really feel like falling asleep at his piano this time.

"Schroeder, you fool," he muttered to himself. "What did you get yourself into?"

Carefully, as to not wake Lucy, Schroeder slid off the bench and supported her head with his hand, sliding his other under her back to lift her off the bench. She wasn't heavy, but Schroeder knew he didn't have the upper body strength to hold her for too long. Moving as quickly as he dared, Schroeder carried Lucy to her bedroom, glad that she had left her door wide open. She had insisted on buying a massive bed that took up half the room, so Schroeder had to maneuver through the laundry strewn about the floor to get her into bed.

He tucked her into the blanket, making sure she was covered up warmly enough. Their apartment could get pretty cold in the mornings, and there was nothing worse than waking up because the blanket had come off sometime in the night, exposing a toe or two.

"Goodnight, Lucy," he said, in a just barely audible tone of voice.

Schroeder stifled a laugh when she released a snore, and he shuffled out of her room, gently closing the door behind him. He walked down the hall, releasing a yawn and stretching out. It was almost two in the morning at this point- if he fell asleep right away, he'd get a good four hours in before he had to wake up for work.

He fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow…

...but for some reason, his dreams consisted of musical ebony and brown blurs.