A/N: Greetings, my favourite little minions. Let me just start of by saying that this chapter was UNBELIEVABLY fun to write and I have been excited about getting this chapter down on paper since I first began the story. My only worry is that now it's out there I may begin to lose interest... which is why I am expecting lots of nice reviews :P

Actually, as long as at least one person enjoys reading it half as much as I enjoyed writing it, I'll be happy.

House

My experienced fingers explored and manipulated; they teased and caressed; they pressed their way deep into the very essence of her soul. I closed my eyes against the wealth of emotions radiating off of both of us; she was responding to me almost before my fingers had an opportunity to work their magic. We were in tune, in sync, we were one; she understood me the way no other ever could, and I felt comfortable baring depths of myself to her that I had not been consciously aware existed.

I leaned in to get closer to her as I increased the tempo, bringing her higher, and faster…

A noise behind me made me pause with my hands suspended over the keyboard of my piano, my friend, the only woman I could ever truly understand. The door to my apartment was opening, a pair of shoes was set aside, delicate feet were padding towards me, and instinctively I knew that the two most important women in my life were in the room with me.

I resumed my attentions to the former, bringing out a mournful song of loss and heartache. I didn't think that my piano would mind if I used her to communicate with Cuddy; I had always been more in tuned (literally) with music than I was with words. And so I played a haunting melody from the romantic era, jazzed up with the occasional cadence and syncopation of the beat.

The music engulfed me with feelings of pain that sank ever so much deeper than the gaping chasm in my leg; I played out my sorrow, and the grief that came with betrayal, as I imagined her to experience it. I poured into the music feelings of joy and of pain, feelings of hate and of lo—well, and of every other emotion I could possibly think of, and some I could not. I could only pray to whatever deities I did not believe in that she would get the message.

Judging by the length of silence that engulfed us after, I could only assume that she did. I made no move to break the peace; I don't think I could have if I wanted to. Silence is another form of music which is undervalued and underplayed. Silence, especially in the never still city, reveals much to us about the outside world.

"House?"

When at last the length of silence snapped I sighed and started pressing a single note on the keyboard over and over again. I had no desire to break the spell I had cast with my performance by doing something stupid like looking at her or saying something.

"House."

I played on, wondering how many different tempos and how many volumes I could get using only the high C.

"Greg!"

I added a G with my left hand. C for Cuddy, G for Greg. The notes worked well together, but it was a hollow, barren chord. I added an E, which sounded better but it was too ordinary.

"Look at me… Greg."

I added a B flat and was rewarded with the perfect example of a dominant seventh chord. It was strong, well grounded, hard to work with, and provided me with a very satisfying sense of dissonance and resolution.

Except that there were two extra notes in there, how could I explain them away? C was for Cuddy, G for Greg, E for…what? E for embryo, B for baby.

I snatched my hands away from the keyboard and whirled on the bench to face Cuddy. Some metaphors can only be taken so far.

She held out her hand, revealing a small collection of white pills. "You never did tell me what you put in with my calcium."

I had already looked away to combat the feeling of bile that was rising in my throat. What had possessed me to show up on her doorstep earlier tonight? "It will all be out of your system by now."

"That's not what I asked. How many did you say you added to the bottle?"

I glowered. "What does it matter? Go home and get on with your life!"

"It was seven wasn't it?"

"Six."

"How can you be sure?"

"They only had a small amount made up at the pharmacy when I arrived. It caused a great kerfuffle before I finally yelled that six was more than sufficient for my needs. Any more questions?"

She once again held up her hand in between us. "Six, Greg. Count them."

I looked blankly at her hand; my mind had retreated to an infantile state and I had to labour long and hard to make myself understand. She seemed to feel it very important that I understand there were six pills in her hand: that was okay, I only added six; the math worked out.

"They're a bit heavier than the rest, they must have all sunk to the bottom."

So six equals six. Good, nothing tricky about that, but six shouldn't equal six should it? If there were six pills to begin with, and six were in her hand, then what did I poison her with?

My mind jumped from this catatonic state to being fully electrically charged at warp speed. I jumped to my feet, or at least I meant to. The end result however, involved my bum leg twisting painfully with the legs of the piano bench and the floor moving up towards me at an alarming rate. I made no move to catch myself; it was a manic-depressive pattern of mine; I had to fall all the way before I could start to pick myself up again.

But then she was there, Lisa, or Cuddy, or possibly both, stepping up to catch me with her smaller form. I had no choice but to react, well technically, in the realm of possibilities I suppose I could have fallen into her and knocked her into the piano, but that wouldn't have been good for either of my two favourite women.

I'm not sure exactly how, but somewhere in my half successful attempt to save her spine and my dignity we ended up part way across the room in a tangle of limbs and hair (hers, not mine), and clothing. Now that my arms were around her, I found it impossible to let go. I had always had a very dependent personality; right now my cane was on the other side of the piano, my vicodin was on the coffee table, and I needed her.

She cried, I didn't. Don't get me wrong, I tried to cry, really I did; somehow I thought it would probably do me a world of good. But it occurs to me how worthless the word try actually is. One may as well walk up to a corpse in the morgue and say "tough break old chap, but to be fair I did try to save your life." That's all very well and good, but the cadaver couldn't care one way or another.

Time wise I have no idea how long we stayed there; I have never permitted clocks in this room because the light from a digital clock bothers me and the ticking from a face clock irritates the hell out of me when I am on my piano. But judging from the internal clock located somewhere in my right thigh, we were there, leaning on each other and on the back of the couch for support, until half-past too long.

She must have come back to her senses before I did because by the time I regained my composure, her breathing was deep and even and her fingers were gently stroking my hair. I took a moment to assess the situation; we were on the floor of my living room, I was curled up against her with my legs entangled with hers, my arms around her waist, and my head… My head was exactly where I had so often imagined it could be; at hundreds of different times, and in every possible situation except this one.

"Better now?" She asked with an affectionate touch of scorn.

"You bet I am." I allowed a stream of air to escape my lips and travel down the V opening in her shirt. She yelped and tried to push me off. There's that word again, try; while she was squirming away from me, I tightened my grip and snuggled closer to her bosom.

Finally, she succeeded in dumping me off and stormed off to the other side of the room. I grinned at her retreating back and made my way to the proper side of the couch, where my vicodin was propositioning from the coffee table.

I shouldn't have felt so relieved; if I had any amount of willpower I should have told her that I was still irresponsible and the world still sucked. But Dr. Lisa Cuddy, overambitious, neurotic dean of medicine, would have known that already; she had just experienced a miscarriage after all. It happens all the time, everywhere, it is one of those unfortunate facts of life which makes me not want to believe in God, because I would detest him if I did.

With that knowledge; that neither Cuddy nor her miscarriage was in any way special, that I was still a pessimistic masochist, and that I still held scarce little hope for the innate goodness of the world, I resolved to make at least one small part of life worth the breath required to keep living.