Patent disclaimer - only Shelly and Diedre are mine.

..:2

Shelly knew the news was good by the way her daughter was bounding up to the house. Deidre burst through the back door and gleefully grabbed her mother up in a hug and began to waltz her around the kitchen island.

"So I take it you got your permit today?" Shelly finally managed after succumbing to her daughter's infectious laughter.

"Yes!" Deidre crowed happily, releasing her grip to slip off her backpack and rummage inside. She pulled out a small insignificant slip of pink paper with the large red "PASS" stamped across it. "98% on my driver theory test!"

Shelly took the paper and examined it more closely, and then passed it back to her daughter with a kiss to her cheek. "I knew you would do fine! Congratulations!"

"So do we need to go anywhere right now? Can I drive?"

Shelly laughed out loud at her daughter's exuberance and pretended to think for a moment.

"I can't really think of anywhere we really need to go," she mused in mock seriousness. "But I suppose we could always go rent a movie," she finally relented after the distraught look came over he daughter's face.

"YES! Thank you Mom! I'll never bug you about getting Netflix again, I promise!"

Shelly just laughed as she shooed Deidre out of the kitchen. "Go do some homework or Facebook or something until I get dinner prepped and then we can take the car to the park. I'm not unleashing you to the streets of the greater Hamilton area without a little prep work."

Shelly could hear her daughter's excited singsong of "Baby you can drive my ca-ar," as she pounded up the stairs to her room. Shaking her head she just returned to the counter and took up the chef's knife to continue slicing the peppers for the night's meal. But after a moment she found herself singing underneath her breath, "Beep beep, beep beep, yeah."

Shuffling her music sheets to the side of the coffee table, Shelly placed her steaming mug of hot chocolate and Chambord on the waiting coaster before picking up her guitar. She worked steadily for almost a half an hour before the thoughts of the day started to seep into her concentration. When she found herself picking out the notes to Drive My Car instead of learning the Jewish hymn before her, she gave up and retired the instrument to its case. Clutching the cooled mug of chocolate she sipped its sweet liquid and found herself drifting along with her thoughts as she stared out the window at the rising moon. It was almost full, only one more day until it's apex, and Shelly felt herself tremble a little with both anticipation and trepidation. Events in her life had always coincided with the full moon. Her first kiss, her first betrayal, the death of her mother. Even Deidre was born under a full moon. The harvest moon, to be exact. September 19th, 1993. It would be seventeen years ago in a few months, and between the milestone of the day, the time of the evening and the effects of the Chambord in her drink, Shelly could feel herself succumbing to the memories of her past.

At this time of night Shelly frequently thought of Diedre's father. How one could ever forget such a man, she wasn't sure, but Shelly knew from the very beginning that she wasn't the type of woman that would claim his attention for very long. At the time, though, still raw from her mother's death only a year earlier, Shelly just relished claiming his attention. And the fact that he made her feel alive. (Oh, so alive!) When he looked at her with those eyes...the shiver that ran up Shelly's spine was as unnerving now as it had been that first night he spoke to her.

Shelly had heard of Greg House long before she met him. Being at University of Michigan, there weren't many people connected with the medical school who hadn't heard of him. Nonetheless, when he actually introduced himself to her over a cup of beer, she thought her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. He had that type of unnerving effect on her.

"Hey. You play guitar?" House had questioned after handing her a drink. Shelly thought that she could just slip into the kitchen and serve herself before going back in to lose herself along the wall somewhere, but his command of the beer tap had dashed her first hope, and his inquiry had her pinned to her spot.

"What makes you say that?" she had stammered foolishly, not quite able to meet his eyes. When he grabbed her left hand with his own, she finally looked up.

"Your fingers. The tips are tougher, just like mine. Fret fingers." He had smiled at her then and she could feel the alcohol jumping around in her stomach with her butterflies. Guys like Greg House didn't talk to Shelly. But here he was, doing his residency and talking to a lowly third year student who wasn't even sure she wanted to keep pursuing her degree in physical therapy. Of course, being at a mixer when they met, Shelly had just helped herself to some liquid courage to loosen her tongue and actually found herself quite a witty character. House must have thought so too, because she found his lean form draped outside her anatomy class the next week.

"Hey. Shelly, right? I just got off a 20-hour shift, but I'm meeting up with a few people for a quick cup of coffee. Any chance you want to come with me?"

Shelly still wasn't quite sure how it evolved from one quick cup of coffee to frequent days and nights together, but she remembered the music. Greg popped up as erratic as his schedule demanded, and constantly persuaded her to join him to go hang out with friends. Always with friends. They were never alone. She frequently found herself holed up in the cramped room of an old turn of the century house that some poor student called home, listening to the strumming of guitars, or the latest rock records, or just plain arguing about the top fives of all time. She loved when he would wander in at the dead of night, right before she closed up at the bar where she worked, and serenade her on the piano as she washed the glasses and wiped down the tables.

But his presence was as confusing as it was enjoyable, because for all the attention he paid her, Shelly never felt that the relationship was ever going to go the way she wished it would. At the end of every outing she just got a smile and a wave. But still, Shelly couldn't imagine surviving those dark days in Michigan without him. Her motivation for medicine was gone after seeing her mother waste away, and more and more the guitar was Shelly's refuge. It was Greg who finally convinced her that she needed to be happy, even if it meant quitting med school, and Michigan, and studying music instead. And so she did. She packed up mid semester and transferred to Pittsburgh to enroll in Duquesne University. She called him exactly twice after she transferred, once when she got there just to tell him her number, and the second time after she had gotten pumped up by a discussion in her music theory class.

"That's great, Shell," House had answered after she had been going on about the discussion for about 20 minutes. He sounded so distracted, and distant. The camaraderie they shared, the humor, was gone. She never called him again.

Shelly went on to get herself a Bachelors Degree in Music with a minor in Psychology. She found a job at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia doing music therapy sessions with the adolescent cancer patients, and immediately found herself loving the work. It was at CHOP that she met Randall, a pediatric cranio-facial surgeon, and fell in love. Eventually, Shelly found herself following him to NJ when he transferred to Princeton General. He proposed to her under a new moon - the sky inky black and wanting for it's pale mistress. Shelly should have taken it for a sign. By the next full moon, she finally saw Randall fully in the light. Arriving at the hospital to surprise him with dinner before he had to go into a surgery, she was given a surprise of her own to find him pounding away at a petite blond nurse who was splayed out on his desk.

As Shelly relieved the pain and anger of that period of her life, a stray breeze reached through the window and started scattering the pages of her music, snapping her out of her memories. When she finally tucked the collected music into her folder, the sound of her phone ringing startled her again.

Who would be calling at this hour? she thought to herself, mentally thinking of the few choice words she would have to exchange with whoever was calling for Deidre at 11pm on a weeknight. But nothing could have prepared her for who was on the other end of the receiver.

"Hello?" Shelly answered in a clipped tone. There was a short period of silence before the familiar voice began.

"Hi. Shelly? It's, uh, James. James Wilson. Look, I'm sorry for calling so late but there's something I think you need to know. It's about House."

Shelly swore she could feel the floor start to shake beneath her feet.

-tbc