A drabble for my piano player!Abbey headcanon that managed to take a sad turn. Enjoy!
It was to train her fingers to be precise and still relaxed. That's what she told Jed when she took her first piano class in college. Of course, she needed one arts class, and she was dedicated to being a well-rounded student, so she chose a class that she thought would help her if she ever became a surgeon.
She didn't ever imagine that 40 years later she'd be sitting in the residency of the White House playing Fly Me to the Moon while the President of the United States lingered behind her, occasionally commented on how good she sounded.
It wasn't that she was a concert pianist, nor did she want to be, but if she fell flat in surgery she could kill someone. Falling flat on the piano was merely playing a wrong key.
Jed liked to sing a song, usually in a different key than she was playing it, and dance around the room behind her. Sometimes he'd sit on the bench with her and put his hands next to hers to play a familiar note on the sheet music. "Keep your fingers relaxed," she'd whisper when he played a note too harshly.
The week after they moved out of the White House, Jed surprised her with a new baby grand for their living room at home. Every weekend when her grandkids visited, she'd play them a new song. It gave her something to do to pass time when she wasn't working at a hospital or teaching younger medical students.
When she decided her days of using real scalpels were over, she played to keep her hands well enough to grade student papers with a red pen and show them the proper way to hold a scalpel.
As she played the piano now, Jed would no longer dance behind her. Instead, she'd give the occasional glance at the chair where he sat reading his newspaper.
The next summer she played and he sat beside her in his wheelchair. "Relax," she'd whisper to him every few minutes. She knew he'd tell her he was getting sicker each day, but the chemo would be over in a few more weeks. Ellie told them often that he'd made it this far, and when it was through he would be able to dance for many more years.
"You don't have to play for me everyday if it's all hard on your hands," Jed whispered back to Abbey once.
"If I don't, you won't have this time to relax with me... You will speak about being ill, I will cry, my hands will tremble... I could mess up the medication I give you every morning. I play so I can be precise and stay relaxed. Do you understand?"
Jed put his hand beside hers and played the last note of the song. "I do."