A/N: Sorry for the delay. It's been a wild and crazy month with several things going on from Dad's cancer through lawnmowers (that saga itself could be a movie, or, as my stepmother called it, a sitcom, and yes, taking loads of time) to work, and final details preparing for publication on Mom's book have taken all of what writing time I had. That will hopefully be out at the end of summer. Nonetheless, this story will be completed eventually.

Here's a short update. I'd hoped for a longer one and expected writing time on Memorial Day weekend, but I barely had time to turn around that weekend. More when I can.

Thanks for reading. This story is definitely a departure for me, but it just wouldn't let me alone. Glad you're enjoying it.

(H/C)

Cuddy spent all non hospital time the next day down at the local newspaper office, looking through their archives, though she did try to discuss a case with the Maestro earlier. It wasn't much of a case; she just wanted to hear his voice again. She had no intention of mentioning anything further to him, not until more research. She also by now could predict quite easily that if she simply confronted him and asked if he had murdered someone, he might retreat forever back into his solitary confinement and refuse to speak to her again. She couldn't stand the thought of never hearing from him again. However, on this day, either he really wasn't up there listening, or her case bait was inadequate. Her forced medical differential drew no response.

Down at the newspaper office, she pored through images of old issues on microfilm. Having a date from her rough internet search earlier, she pinned down her target window of newspapers easily and set out reading everything that had been printed on the case.

There was no question that the Maestro and Dr. Gregory House were the same. The picture was unmistakable.

House's landlord had been found murdered in House's apartment. They had had a tempestuous relationship anyway, and they had quarreled, with another tenant overhearing, just the day before. The topic that time had again been his piano playing being too loud at times, though the newspaper stated there were also several complaints from the unit below about House pacing with audible cane strokes throughout the night. Apparently, Cuddy concluded, the floors weren't insulated that well.

Audible cane strokes. The medical details were not the focus of the newspaper articles, of course, but to Cuddy as a budding doctor, they teased her, begging for more elaboration. She had already decided that the next day, Saturday, she would go down to the hospital archives and look up his old file. That was a blatant violation of HIPAA; curiosity was not sufficient reason in official eyes to read the medical records of someone. That was why she planned that research on a Saturday with lower weekend coverage, less people around. She herself had a day off on Saturday as far as her medical duties.

She also had a date Saturday night with James Wilson. Couldn't let herself forget that, but surely, reading one medical chart wouldn't take all day plus the night.

Per the newspaper coverage, House had had an "infraction" (she growled to herself over the spelling error even while reading; darned non-medical editors) in his leg some months earlier and hadn't been able to work since while he went through rehab. Thus the cane pacing and probably also the more frequent fortissimo piano playing as he had more time on his hands. Cuddy filled in the medical blanks easily: He was trying to find ways to cope with physical pain.

What about medicines? Hadn't any of his doctors helped him with pain management? Or had he been unwilling to accept it, resenting his new limitations? She still remembered the feel of that crater in his leg beneath her hands as she worked out his spasm. Major surgery and, she had no doubt, major pain.

Back to the records of the case, House's tension with the landlord had been rising the last few months, probably fueled some by pain and frustration on his part. Of course, this was a one-sided account; his landlord might well have been a curmudgeon himself. She couldn't guarantee that all the conflict credited to House, though the escalation probably was tied to his pain and physical condition.

The landlord had been found one afternoon when a UPS deliveryman arrived at House's apartment with a package. The door hadn't quite been shut and had opened to his knock, and the landlord lay in a puddle of blood in the living room floor, his head having been bashed in. There were a few clear cane marks as well as a footprint in the puddle, and then there were bloody cane/footprints leading to the kitchen sink. There, apparently, he had washed off the blood from cane and shoes, as no trail led any farther.

House had not been seen from that day on, not by anyone who admitted it, at least. He had attended therapy earlier that afternoon at the hospital, but after he left to go home, he vanished.

Cuddy reread all the stories, which gradually trickled off. The case remained open, but new news quickly shoved it to the rear pages, then out of the papers altogether. One more fact jumped out at her; it was mentioned that House's mother had died the morning of the murder. She had had a heart attack down in Lexington. The paper speculated whether that might be a contributing factor in pushing House over the edge.

Cuddy shook her head, trying to imagine House - the Maestro - committing a murder. He certainly was sharp, acerbic, impatient, outright ruthless at times, but she simply couldn't picture him picking up his cane or something else and hitting someone hard enough to bash his head in, not even fueled by physical pain and acute grief over his mother. In spite of all his testiness, he seemed to have more respect for life than that. He wanted to fix people, even if he snarked about them while doing it.

So if he didn't, who did? Who else would have been in his apartment with the landlord? Was it a chance encounter, or was he framed?

No question, filling in gaps, that he had found the body prior to UPS finding it, assuming he was innocent of the murder. He had disappeared that very night. The timing had to be connected. So he came home from rehab that afternoon, walked in, found his landlord, maybe walked over for a closer examination to verify death, thus getting into the blood - then washed off the blood from shoes and cane and vanished forever? No attempt at defense? The paper said the landlord had been dead for a few hours. She could not imagine the Maestro killing someone, then calmly going to a rehab session. She couldn't imagine the Maestro killing someone at all.

But the question that burned the most for her after her research was, why on earth hadn't he made any attempt at defense? If he was innocent, why not call the police and say so? Running was almost an admission of guilt, and he had to have known it would be perceived as that. Why not put up a fight for himself?

Ten years. He had sentenced himself to ten years (so far) of solitary prison over there for a murder that she couldn't see him committing.

Why?