Author's Note: Don't own them, so don't sue. Leonard Cohen, I believe, owns Hallelujah.
I heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
His dexterous hands skipped along the piano keys. A, D, E flat, B. Smooth, keep it smooth. Sharp staccatos, just like you. Hold the note. Trill key C. Eight sixteenth notes, make them fast, but keep the fluidity of they melody. Hit the grace note…
His hands unconsciously stopped after the simple piano skill. He hit the G quickly and then the F, but he stopped when his conscious mind overtook the stupor state he had been in.
A grace note.
Cameron was a grace note. She was beautiful and harder than she looked. She was a G to an F. She puzzled him, and he liked puzzles.
But he would never tell her that. After years of pining miserably for Stacy, he did not want to be destroyed by a woman again. Power was his trump card and sarcasm was the dominating suit.
He played the piano because, for several minutes during his musical soliloquy, he could drift off into the oblivion of the lovely music. There were no thoughts about Stacy and dead patients that haunted him in the quiet moments during the day. There was no bickering between Foreman and Chase. There were no worries about having a relationship with an underling. There were the notes on the piano and there were the instructions written in the second language of notes that only the experienced understood; this comforted him more than his Vicodin ever could. Music was the universal language and he wondered if Cameron understood it.
Stacy had not and Wilson knew only of the great rockers of the '60s and '70s. The oncologist and he could go back and forth quoting lyrics and making references to completely irrelevant musicians of the decade. But Wilson was not a fan of Beethoven, Bach, or Brahms. House was on his own in his classical piano tastes.
He played jazz, but preferred to listen to it rather than actually play it. Jazz had layers and he liked to pick those layers apart like he did to a patient. No one liked to listen with him, though, for he was a listener who would close his eyes and kill the first person who interrupted him.
He took a swig from the amber colored drink sitting on top the books that were scattered on the closed baby grand's lid. He stuck out his tongue to touch the ice as he drank and then put the glass again. His hands fell back to the silky ivory keys and commenced to play again.
Cameron stood outside his door listening to the heartbreaking piano that played on inside. She heard the sharpness of his fingers hitting the keys and then the tinkling when she imagined his fingers danced gracefully atop the pieces of wood. The tears formed in her eyes as she put her back to the door and started to slide down to sit on the pavement. She didn't understand music—the songs were pretty, but, being pretty like she was, she hated the adjective and the characteristic. Pretty was stupid and ridiculous and applied to Barbie dolls that had no brains. She wanted to be called smart and she wanted to be respected. And she wanted to be loved.
She knew it was the universal thing every girl wanted when she grew up. To be loved by another human being, to be cuddled, to be held…oh, yes, it was every girl's dream. Cameron was no exception. There had been a marriage because she was a nice person. She had a friend in high school—ambitious, talented, and smart—who was the opposite of Cameron. She had a spirit that evolved out of distrust for society. She knew Cameron would hurt herself one day because she was too nice. Yes, her friend could come up with the wittiest remarks and play with all the boys. She died when they were seventeen in a car accident coming home from a party. Cameron never forgot as she watched her friend die. Certain images are seared into people's mind. There was her friend dying, her husband doing the same, and there was House at the Monster Truck rally. Images floated in her brain like the notes that permeated the pages of the music House was performing.
The tears streamed down her cheek and she tried not to heave her heavy breath into the night air. House didn't need to hear her crying pitifully at his door. The piano had been stopped for several dozen seconds now, and she was quite worried that he had stopped. These private concerts that unknowingly gave her every night kept her sane. Yes, he had asked her back, and, yes they had gone to dinner. And then he wasn't at work for the next few days. On the second day, she came over to his house to see if he was okay. She heard the piano and knew she couldn't interrupt him. She stayed and listened and came back every night, even after he returned to work.
The sound of the piano resonated dimly through the wooden door. A slight smile formed on her lips as she hummed along. She was so content, even if the tears belied that point, that she did not notice when the piano stopped again, and the door behind her opened, sending her spilling into House's living room.
