They sat together in the park,
As the evening sky grew dark…
He came here to think. Plus, this wasn't a medical mystery that needed to be solved…this was his hopelessly screwed up life. "General Hospital" could only do so much. It was dusk and he watched as a crew team sped by on the river. The grace of the synchronicity of the men's arms calmed him for reasons he didn't understand. Maybe it was because he rowed once. He had picked up an oar and been dared to row down the river after one of the fastest members of the crew team. He had lost, of course, and never rowed again. But the sport always intrigued him. Men moving in perfect motion to the commands of a lone person, the coxswain. He knew he could never do that no matter how hard he tried—he simply was not a "team player" and would fail at the sport. He was stubborn, but not stupid.
His iPod, the greatest invention since the GameBoy, played a menagerie of old rock classics. The Who, the Rolling Stones, Springsteen, Led Zeppelin…the music, like the Vicodin, was his empty therapy—his imaginary drugs. One earphone dangled by itself, suspended in space, while the other was firmly impressed in his ear. It was his own way of knowing who was having the audacity to sneak up and—gasp!—sit by him.
"Screw you," he mumbled as it played Hotel California by the Eagles.
It was Stacey's favorite song and he had never removed it from the music player. The excuses varied on why he didn't just hit 'delete' or 'remove from playlist' when he had the damn thing hooked up to the computer: it's not a horrible song, I'm too busy, I miss her…
He didn't know the real reason why he never removed it, but chalked it up to a bad case of sentimentality and laziness. He would but up with it for now…
"Dr. House? Is this seat taken?" Cameron's voice cut through his soliloquy on Stacey and the still-playing Hotel California.
"Of course it's taken. My imaginary friend, Bob, is sitting there. He's pricklier than me on a bad day and doesn't take well to people sitting on him."
Her eyes flashed and she reached down and pulled the tightly implanted iBud out of his ear.
"Damn it, House…"
"Gosh, touchy-touchy. A simple, 'Please Dr. House, God of medicine, sex, and painkillers, please take out your earphone. Being nasty and forward wins no points with any man," he snidely scolded.
"We just got a new patient in. Female, fourteen, fainted. Brought in by her teacher who claims she fainted in front of him…"
"We doctors take cases for the strangest reasons, don't we? Chase, Foreman, and Wilson working on it?"
"Of course. I was just leaving, so they wanted me to inform…"
"You volunteered to tell me. Rule #1: If you're going to be a liar, be a god one."
Her jaw clenched and he knew her teeth were grinding.
"Plus, even you knuckleheads could figure out a simple case of why a girl fainted Anemia, exhaustion…please. You now have two options that I'm going to give you. Leave me alone or go away," he snapped.
She flung a lone ticket on his lap.
"Yes, you're right. Wilson took care of the girl. I needed an excuse to find you and I had an extra ticket," she bashfully told him.
JUMPIN' JAZZ! ONE NIGHT ONLY! ALL THE MASTERS PLAYED BY THE FINEST CONETEMPORARY ARTISTS IN NEW JERSEY! This ticket only admits one adult.
He fingered the ticket in his lab. Jazz…oh, how he could use some jazz.
"My car and I'm driving."
The smile on her face gave him an affirmative answer.
"Now, run along and get the cripple's stuff from his office like a good girl."
"Yes, sir!" She said with an excess amount of glee.
He watched as she almost skipped—skipped!—down the sidewalk back to the hospital.
"Fantastic," he muttered as he stuck the headphone back into his ear.