A/N: Hi, readers! This is the first chapter ever posted from my brand new house. The unexpected replacement of the old house on my land is what has been consuming my time the last four months. Infinite details and more of a process than I had expected, but it's done now.

Mom's book, which was bumped down temporarily on the priority list to deal with the urgent house situation, now resumes the first position. I'm in final polishing and review, and it is due to the publisher on April 9th, which would have been Mom's birthday. The date is self chosen, but the publisher knows about it and is counting on it, so there is a final push to make sure that is ready. Book will hopefully be out late summer.

Meanwhile back at fanfiction, this story and the remaining ones in line for my series are fine. They just have to find allotted time as available. Patience is a virtue, as Mom always said - then laughed, because it was a virtue she didn't have much of, either.

Happy almost spring! Enjoy this short bite, and I'll get more ASAP. Really hadn't meant to break this chapter here, but I wanted to give you something.

(H/C)

The next several months were the most deliciously challenging and frustrating that Cuddy had ever known in her life.

The Maestro pushed her, picked at her, sometimes mocked her, but her medical education grew in leaps and bounds. She no longer even rolled her eyes at the title of Maestro of Medicine. He merited it. Some of her attending physicians and her fellow students had started asking how she was suddenly thinking so well outside the box, and she simply said she had a new tutor and changed the subject. No way was she going to tell them that she conducted medical differentials with a disembodied voice up on the roof.

For all the medical stimulation, though, there were clear lines that she could not cross. Any personal question at all made the Maestro lock up. No name, no background. He also was annoyingly unpredictable. There were times she went up to the roof with a question, and he never responded. There were also times when she had decided he wasn't there, and he abruptly joined her several minutes into her self differential. She was never sure if he had just arrived or if he had been there all along but perversely silent.

He also definitely had good days and bad days. Not with the medicine; that was unfailingly brilliant. But some times, his patience was even less, his voice sharper and with an obvious undefined strain. Once or twice, he had broken off in mid sentence with a quick catch of breath, then resumed after a moment. Asking him if anything was wrong was pointless. He could shut down on her in nothing flat. She was learning to gauge from his tone when to walk more carefully around him.

That voice haunted her dreams now. Even in her dreams, annoyingly, she could never see him. He was always just out of reach.

She was thinking of his eccentricities this evening as she headed up to the roof. She had a challenging patient whom she thought he would enjoy as well as be helpful on. She climbed the stairs eagerly, then opened the door. The world tonight was hung between stars and storm, half of the sky studded with diamonds even in the city lights, the other half dark and ominous. She studied the approaching darkness, wondering how long it would take to get her, wondering if it would affect him. His bad days seemed more tied to weather than to anything else she could peg down, though the correlation still wasn't 100%.

She turned away from the gathering clouds and looked around the roof. "Maestro," she whispered. Nothing. "Maestro!" She let herself get a little louder. She walked around, trying a few different locations, though she had never been able to assign a direction to his voice. "I need to talk to you if you're here. Maestro. Maestro!"

"Maestro? Have you got an orchestra hidden up here?"

She spun around at the unexpected voice behind her. A man was standing in the doorway to the stairwell, having just opened it. "Hello, Lisa," he said, smiling.

It took a moment, but then she remembered the eyes and the manner. "James. James Wilson."

He stepped forward. "You do remember me. Who is the Maestro?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking out loud." He looked unconvinced, and she quickly changed the subject. "What are you doing here?" He had lived on her street, had been a young crush back in her childhood days, but he had moved away when she was 13, and she hadn't seen him since.

"I'm a doctor now," he said proudly. "A resident, at least. Just joined the hospital with the newest crop." He came a little closer, his warm, chocolate eyes studying her with appreciation. "You've grown up. You're beautiful, Lisa."

"You've grown up, too," she replied. He was dashingly handsome now, beyond childhood awkwardness, with the same winning charm she remembered and extra layers added to it. "What's your specialty?"

"Oncology," he said. "I thought I recognized you a little bit ago in the hallway, but you were heading for the stairwell so quickly, you didn't turn around when I called."

"Sorry. I didn't hear you." Those eyes had made her tingle inside at times even back when she was 13.

He put a hand on her arm. "I'd love to catch up. We have a lot of missing years to fill in, both of us. Could I buy you dinner?"

"Sure." He had been a good friend and a little more. She would enjoy catching up with his life. "I need to pick up a few things at my locker, though."

"I have a couple of loose ends to tie up, too. Meet you in the lobby in 15 minutes?"

"That sounds fine. See you then."

He gave her a hug. "I've never forgotten you, Lisa," he said softly. "I'm glad we've reconnected." He backed away, smiled again, then turned and reentered the stairwell.

Cuddy stood there for a moment, lost in memory. James Wilson of all people. She couldn't say she had thought of him all the time through the years, but she hadn't forgotten, either. She smiled to herself. "Well, well, well," she said aloud. "Tonight, for once, you're off the clock, Lisa. Let's just enjoy it." Tomorrow would be soon enough on the medicine; her patient wasn't critical, just challenging. She certainly had a right to a night out once in a while. All of her colleagues teased her that she didn't know how to enjoy herself.

She started for the stairwell herself.

"Cuddy."

She froze. That voice. It still made her shiver, even after months. "Maestro." She turned around, expecting to see nothing as always. "Maestro, I have to meet a..."

She stopped dead, staring. There just across the gate was a figure, still in the shadows but visible. Tall, quite tall. Cloaked. She took a few steps, wondering if she was seeing things.

"Cuddy," he said again. "Come here." His eyes as she got closer were burning, intense. Thunder rumbled behind her from the approaching storm.

"Maestro," she whispered. James Wilson was forgotten in the moment. She reached out across the fence that marked forbidden territory, and he met her hand halfway, and he was substantial, warm, alive, and for the first time, in every way, there.