+ Game over +I .There's something in the air
The tunes of the song reached his ears, numbed his soul that for once had stopped aching.
His fingers were softly brushing the strings of the guitar almost like they were tightrobe dancers airily balancing between life and death.
He had his eyes closed and felt completely relaxed and calm.
This felt right. Wilson had been right: Sometimes a change made all the difference.
The knock on his door didn't reach his mind at first. Or at least, he didn't allow it to reach his mind.
When the second and the third knock turned more forceful though, he knew that he wouldn't be able to ignore this unwelcome guest.
His fingers stopped and he laid his hand flat against the guitar strings, suffocating the music, turning it into deafening silence within a second.
He froze when he opened the door and didn't find himself facing Wilson as expected but Cuddy.
"I called for a blonde in a naughty officer's costume and they're sending me a brunette in a hospital administrator's outfit ? Dilettantes !" He growled at her and she furrowed her brow at him in return.
"I brought those legs you like so much", she teased him softly and looked at him sternly at the same time.
"Somehow I get the feeling that you didn't come here for the pleasure of adult entertainment", he snarled.
She sensed how the time window that he granted her before he would slam the door shut in her face once again was closing and moved forward.
"Can I come in ?" she therefore more demanded than asked while she was already crossing his threshold forcing him to step back to let her in.
"I'm not going to cave in", he declared, still holding the door open as if hoping for her to turn around and leave at this statement.
But she didn't even think of leaving him again, thus proceeding until she was standing in the center of his living room and turned around, looking so strangely unfamiliar in this place, his own private hideaway.
She seemed so much smaller outside her hospital.
The warm sandy colors of her outfit matched the brown shades of his furniture, and she almost appeared to melt into the ambience where he could still feel the music of his guitar lingering.
"I know. But that's not what I'm here for", she replied.
He frowned and wondered whether he had sensed some kind of allure in her voice.
She looked around and instantly spotted the guitar leaning against the wall.
It had been a long time since she had been in here and actually nothing had changed.
Nothing except for this guitar.
She looked back up at him, willing to fight as always, but shook her head in defeat when she understood that there was nothing to fight about because she wasn't even mad at him.
She had been mad but it had for some reason been washed away the very minute she had entered his apartment.
It irritated her to see him so calm, almost light, and she wondered whether that was a good sign or only the foreshadowing of some kind of breakdown that would follow this.
It had been an incredibly rough year for him, for everyone actually who had been around him.
But he seemed to be fine for now. And maybe she should just leave it that way.
So she nodded.
"I get it", she finally gave in. "You needed a change. It's natural that people need a break after having worked together so closely for three years. God knows I could need a break from you, too."
She paused and looked at him, waiting for him to say something. But he didn't. So she continued, feeling a little self-conscious and out of place because she was obviously shadow boxing.
"Though I am still the boss here. I always make the final calls that haven't been made yet in this issue."
She fixed her gaze on him feeling how her feet were losing their ground.
He seemed to be miles away.
He looked down and finally let go off the doorknob, slamming the door shut with a tired movement.
Obviously she was worried, even though she would never admit that.
And she wouldn't go away unless he prove her that there was no reason to be worried.
"If you think you can force me to work with them by hiring them again –" he started the fight she was trying to provoke to make sure nothing had changed.
But she interrupted him.
"Nobody can 'force' you to do anything, you're a grown-up. At least according to law", she added. "But you do need fellows if you want to keep your department…"
Her voice faded and she closed her eyes, raising her hand, massaging her left temple with her fingers that then glid down on her cheek and came to a rest in the back of her neck.
She felt sore and tired and envied House.
Because she also felt like firing the world, firing her whole life.
She also felt in the mood for a drastic change.
And she was not at all in the mood for fighting.
Their eyes met again.
"Is this a midlife crisis ?" she calmly asked him, barely audible, almost smiling at that question herself.
But to her own surprise he simply replied "Maybe" and limped towards the couch, letting himself fall down onto it.
She turned around and looked down at him.
One possible drastic change would be to just break that pattern that she had got used to to protect herself from him.
But breaking that pattern would now feel like a liberation and it had actually never seemed so easy before.
Because he had broken his pattern already, by firing Chase, by letting Cameron go, by yelling at Foreman. And by showing her his jealousy, that he still considered her his territory, after all these years.
But maybe that was only one of his phases. Maybe he was just going through something, just like she had gone through this phase of wanting to have a child.
All she had to do was to allow him some space for this until it was over.
She owed him that.
"Well, then tell me when you're done", she therefore finally said, simply and wearily.
He looked up and nodded at her but not without noticing the subtle and unexpected change in her strategy. Obviously his change in behavior had the effect of flipping a domino.
There was a glint in his eyes that made her heart skip a beat. Because it told her to go.
At the same time asking her to stay, asking for closeness, for someone who could hear the music in his head.
Her eyes looked at the guitar again.
She had heard him before she had knocked on his door. It had been a light and smooth melody and she was sure it had been one of his self-composed songs, speaking the words his mouth couldn't utter.
"It's nice. Was time you got a new one", she said when the memory of the music was fading again.
She smiled at him, faintly.
And then she left.
He closed his eyes, his nose sensing the light scent of her perfume lingering in the air along with the music that was still echoing in his head.
This was the reason why she was still in his life whereas others kept stepping in and out of it:
Because she always walked away from him just when he was making a step towards her, so that in the end they never moved apart.
It was like playing tag, like hide and seek.
Though at the moment it felt more like hit and run.