A new story to keep my mind from doing loops over "Our World". Hope you like =)
Disclaimer: I still owe nothing.
Stalker
I was going to my office, I was tired and irritated. I'd been up all night going over the budget for next year and I was tired beyond anything. I was getting too old for all nighters I mumbled to myself as I entered my office and shedding my coat as fast as I could to get to my coffee. I needed my morning fix right now. Turning to my desk I stopped as I saw 2 roses lying on the top of it. I was quickly going over coming in; was the door locked? I'd been on auto and I just couldn't remember now. I walked over and looked down at them with a suspicious glance and notice the note under it. I pick up the roses; one white, one red and couldn't help myself sniffing one of them in the romantic idea that the roses were from someone who liked me. The only one that repeatedly broke into my office was House. I picked up the note and dropped the roses as my eyes read the words:
"I'm watching you."
I looked around, half expecting House to jump out from my adjoined bathroom but he didn't. I put the note back down and decided I'd deal with this after the budget meeting rather than now. I threw the roses and the note one last glance and mentally reminded myself to go talk to House later.
~~ o.O.o ~~
If I'd been tired before the meeting, it was noting compared to how tired I was after. My head was practically spinning from going over numbers again and again. The board of course wanted the cut down on House. Four doctors doing nothing but an average of 30 cases a year wasn't a priority. There was no news there. I'd argued the same point for years now and I was used to it. House was staying and with the same 3 fellows. I didn't see why they even tried to argue it. It might just be 30 cases, but it was 30 referred cases from other doctors who'd given up on patients that would otherwise have died.
As I entered my office and was hoping I could go home early with a stack of paperwork to rest my tired head on, I was thoroughly disappointed; House was sitting my chair with the roses and the note in his hands.
"This is a bit odd. Why state the obvious; it's impossible to miss that huge ass of yours. They could use it as a beacon to outer space."
"House. Don't you have better things to do than snoop in my office?"
"Not really. Besides this is more fun. Some moron left you two flowers and a freaky stalker note." I sighed and rubbed my temples.
"You didn't leave them?" He looked bewildered.
"Why would I leave you flowers?" He tried to sound resentful but there was something about the way he looked at me that told me he was deflecting.
"To freak me out? A joke?"
"I can do better than this. This is lame," he said getting up and letting me have my chair, flowers and note on the desk included. I half wanted him to take it so I didn't have to deal with it but he simply stood next to me looking down at the items as well as I did.
"If you didn't leave them…" I trailed off not wanting to think about whom else could have. "Must be the cleaners thinking I'm too messy." I brushed it off and quickly threw note and roses in the trash.
"So you'd have kept them had it been from me?"
"I…" I couldn't seem to help the blush coming on and was thanking my morning self for applying just that tad bit more makeup before leaving the house. "No, House. I wouldn't but I'd have know who did it."
"I see." He gave me a piercing stare and I returned it. He then suddenly nodded and turned around to leave. "Okay." I sat there looking after him and as always I didn't have a clue what was going on in that head of his. I sighed and opted for doing some paperwork here and now as I was already seated and going home seemed like a long way away.
~~ o.O.o ~~
I ended up falling asleep on my stack of papers and wasn't woken till the cleaning lady came and bustled around finally rousing me from my slumber. I quickly gathered myself and my stuff and left my office walking to my car with my head filled with groggy thoughts of sleep.
I drove home and as I stumbled in I almost fell over a small package lying just outside my door. I picked it up cautiously and shook it.
"Great idea to shake a potential bomb." I mumbled to myself as I carried the box inside and setting it on the small table in the hall as I freed myself from my coat and shoes. I needed a shower first before anything.
I felt refreshed and more awake as I came out after the shower and dressed in a comfortable loose-fitting t-shirt before heading to the kitchen for a cup of tea. While the water was boiling I remembered the box and I retrieved it from the hall with a curiosity of a 5-year-old. Even Deans of Medicine had their vices; I rationalized to myself as I opened the box. It was a simple brown paper box. There was no card; no sender or any indication that it was even really for me but it was on my porch so ergo it was for me I quickly decided.
The box was sealed with a piece of tape that I quickly tore off opening the box in the same movement. I regretting being so nosy the second I saw what was in it; it was my nametag from the clinic and an earring of mine I'd lost the other week, neatly placed on a piece of paper. I took out the items, gulping down the sudden lump that had formed in my throat, and unfolded it to read the note inside:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
I held my breath. I was a beautiful poem but there was something wrong with anyone sending me this. I had no one in my life at the moment that could have an excuse to send me such a poem. Or return my lost items for that matter. I put the note back in the box and closed it before setting it on the table. I was going to decide about this later. I needed to sleep now. I was so tired I wasn't thinking straight. I left the box and the questions it raised behind and checked every lock and window one extra time before crawling into bed and falling asleep immediately.
~~ o.O.o ~~
The next morning as I entered my office I was surprised to see House already at my desk with two more roses and a note in hand.
"Morning House." I greeted him warily as I approached him. He looked up with an uncharacteristic serious look which made me worry instantly without even really knowing the cause.
"What House?" He silently handed me the note from under the roses and I let my eyes run over the few words:
"I will love you like no other man!
You are the beauty that takes the breath out of the wind,
The gentle caress of blissful sorrow over love well made,
And life's undoubted truth of sweetly covered dew in the grass.
I will be your for all eternity and catch you on every breath,
Oh please don't forget."
I looked at House again. He looked up at me as well reading every expression I'd made as I read the few lines.
"It's a crap poem." I couldn't help but laugh. It was pretty crap.
"Thanks." He smiled a small smile.
"If that guys is in like love with you and think that's you; he's a moron." That was all he said, getting up and leaving me standing wondering if it was an insult or a compliment. I was quickly interrupted by my assistant and I spent the rest of the day chasing my own tail – or so it felt – while trying to make ends meet.
The next few days were busy but every morning there were two roses on my desk and a note of some kind; either a poem or a note with a comment on something, and in the evenings when I got home there was a small little box with some item of mine I'd lost and poem inside. As the days morphed into two weeks of these messages and declarations of love I was tired of it. I was certain it wasn't House as he'd had a case and had been busy obsessing over the musical genius and getting " a cool drug in is brain" and he had had no additional time to inquire about my roses and letters.
I was getting more and more angry as I found yet another set of roses on my table every morning and as the 15th pair of them were decorating my neat pile of paperwork I didn't read the note or even paid it any more attention than I did irregular mess. I had been thinking that the guy would give up with there was no reaction but it seemed he didn't really want one. Or he'd keep going no matter what.
I sat down turning my chair and looking out the window. It was a cold day and the sky was grey torn with bits of white. It was gloomy and I felt the mood of it all get to me. I sighed and turned back to my desk and the enormous stack of paperwork on it. I spent the next hour signing off this and that till my hand was aching and my body was screaming for coffee.
I was disturbed by House who came bustling as per usual without knocking. I looked up and he smiled like cat that was closing in on its prey.
"House?"
"How's your love boy?" I frowned at his choice of words.
"He's not-"
"Cuddy, I know," he cut me off. "But taking it he's still sending you stuff?" I nodded with a tired sigh. There was this thing with House that when you really did need him to take it serious he did. Like choosing a donor for my baby. Somehow he just knew the subtle difference between when to blurt it all out and walk all over and the times when he needed to keep it to himself. This seemed like one of the times. I felt myself relax in his company as he sat down.
"So still just roses and crappy poems?" I nodded.
"And the box on the evening when I get home with some sort of lost item of mine." I hadn't told him about that. He'd been bent on the case and I saw no reason to interrupt with some petty problem of a love struck stalker.
"Lost items?"
"Last night was an earring I lose a while back, night before was a hair clip…just stuff."
"Personal stuff," he corrected me with a frown. He twirled his cane between his hands and looked at me with a piercing stare. I had no idea what he was thinking but I didn't like that the situation had him keep his sarcastic and snide remarks to himself. That wasn't a good sign.
"What are you thinking?" He shook his head.
"Nothing. Don't worry. It will blow over. He'll find out who you really are and run for the hills." He smirked as he said it but even though it was rude it was oddly reassuring coming from him.