Secret Words
Title: Secret Words
Fandom: House M. D.
Rating/Genre: G/femslash (sort of)
Characters/Pairing: Remy “Thirteen” Hadley/OFC
Summary: Remy has kept three secrets from her co-workers, but they are all connected and maybe they can’t stay hidden forever…
Word count: 1 632
Spoilers/Warnings: No.
Notes: Written for the prompt House MD, Thirteen/OFC, writing a song requested by with_rainfall at comment_fic.
Remy Hadley still had a couple of secrets. House didn’t know, Foreman didn’t, not Taub or Chase or anyone. It was nothing serious, not dangerous, not a deep, dark secret. She just wanted to keep it to herself as long as possible, keep something away from their prying eyes.
On Wednesdays, she went to choir practice.
It was no big deal, not really. She had read studies about it, how choir singing is good for one’s health and general well-being. Music is good, being creative is good, and being it together in a group makes it even better.
One would think that she had enough of group activities, but this one was different. She was not ‘Thirteen’ there, nobody knew about her disease, nobody cared about who she was dating, what she had for breakfast, or what she did last weekend, they didn’t constantly make sex jokes and nobody tried to be better or more important than anyone else.
To sum it up, it was good for her.
Her second secret was that she had a crush on her choral director. And that, too, was good for her.
At first, she hadn’t really thought much about it. It was just a harmless little crush because really, how could any person in their right mind not have a crush on that woman?
The director of the choir was a woman in her late forties, tall and slim, very elegant. She was a true professional, a born leader, and the way she conducted the choir was extremely focused and powerful. She held the music in her hands, created it with her eyes, the choir kept her eyes fixed on her and followed her every command instantly, they took pride and joy in being the instrument in her hands.
In Remy’s eyes she was beautiful.
She knew that if House found out, he would to look at it like a mystery, a new symptom in the mysterious case of Thirteen, and would go on and on about her not making a move, being passive, afraid of something. He would insist that something was wrong if she didn’t sleep with the woman. And honestly, it wasn’t that Remy wouldn’t want to, but House just wouldn’t understand that she didn’t need to have and possess every woman she was attracted to, that sometimes, just taking a step back to observe and find rest in pure beauty could be enough.
At least, that was the way it had been for a long time. She was content with being just one of many in the crowd - choir singing really was teamwork at its very best - but then something happened that brought out her third secret.
Her third secret was the one that she was most desperate to keep to herself: She was secretly a writer.
Yes, Remy didn’t have a blog and she didn’t keep a diary, and there were no drafts of novels in her closets, but she scribbled down poems on napkins sometimes, on old bills and receipts. Then when she had kept them around for a while, she threw them away. She had them memorized by then if she found them worth to remember.
She had never told anyone about this and consequently, no one had ever read her poems. She had no intention of letting them be read, ever, or at least not until she had grown considerably older and felt ready for that kind of exposure. Now that she knew that she would most likely never reach that point of inner maturity and confidence, she knew that her poems were never going to be read, and she was fine with it.
What happened was that one night at choir practice, the woman she so admired let out a secret of her own: She was a composer.
She wanted the choir to sing a song she had written, and not that it was a surprise to Remy - that woman was so amazingly talented that she could do anything - but it still made her feel weak to her knees, shaken. The music was so beautiful that it brought tears to her eyes.
Until then she had thought of her adoration of the woman as just a silly and harmless straight crush but her emotions overpowered her and she knew that she had to do something. She had to write song lyrics. If she was ever going to show her writings to anybody, she decided, it was going to be to that woman.
Remy thought about for a while, unsure what to do. Could she really get that personal with this woman? There was no way of knowing if she would even be interested in writing a song together with someone, or if she would like what Remy wrote. But the more she heard the song that had prompted the idea, the more she knew that she had to take the risk. She told herself that it was unreasonable to be nervous; didn’t she have difficult conversations with people all the time? This time it wasn’t somebody’s life that was at stake. Just her heart and pride…
Nervous or not, one night after practice she went up to the woman to talk to her, as everybody else was walking out of the room.
Her knees were shaking a little, she was even close to rambling, and afterwards she wasn’t quite sure about what she had said or if she had made a fool of herself.
What she did know was that the answer had been yes. Yes to try to write a song together, yes to read some of Remy’s poems to see if there was something to work with.
Her head was filled with music when she went home that night and she didn’t even notice people around her. She was already silently trying out combinations of words, of ideas, images; she wanted to create something unexpected and inspiring, a worthy vessel for the wonderful music the amazing lady was going to compose.
Remy called in sick the next day. She knew there weren’t many things that were serious enough to be allowed to stay at home for, but she blamed fever and stomach illness.
She was lucky; they bought her lie and no one even came to check up on her to confirm that she really was sick.
In a way, it was like a fever. She worked with her pen and papers in a sort of delirium, a high without any other drug than her excitement, her secret love.
To her relief and astonishment, none of her co-workers suspected any ulterior motives to her few days of absence. When she went back to work, she was told that she looked kind of worn out, haggard even. She had forgotten to eat properly.
When Wednesday came again, she gave the result of all her efforts away to be read, judged and evaluated. She couldn’t even believe what she was doing, but she did it, and the magnificent woman all her dreams were about, she took the papers in her hand and thanked her with a smile.
What Remy wanted to do next was to pretend to be sick again; she could claim to have had a nervous breakdown and it would be very close to the truth. She wanted to hide in her bed, in the warm and safe darkness under her blankets, and never come out again, because there was no way she could survive this exposure of her soul.
Yet she went to work, and she made it through the week, and then she made it through another choir practice. She didn’t think that anybody could see it on her face that there was something going on; she was a master of secrets after all and her friends in the choir were nothing like her co-workers who habitually ripped each other’s souls apart in search of information. The choir, the room full of people, was Remy’s safe haven, the one place in the world where she felt that she was entitled to her privacy.
Then, when everybody was gone and the room was empty except for the two women, Remy’s fear disappeared.
“I like your lyrics,” the woman she loved said. “Thank you for letting me see them. I would really like to work with them, it means a lot to me that you want to do this.”
Remy felt like a high school kid with a teacher crush or an overwhelmed fangirl who suddenly meets her favorite celebrity. She blushed and stuttered.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m glad you like them, I wasn’t sure, but it means a lot to me, I can’t wait to see what you come up with, the music, I mean…”
“We don’t know the result yet,” the woman smiled, “but if it turns out okay, maybe the choir can sing our songs.”
Remy hadn’t thought about that. All she had cared about was to give something to the other woman, to offer her something of herself, something lasting and precious to make an impression. Something that would still be there when she was gone. And more than anything, she had wanted the music. It would be unique, created because of her, and it would give her comfort when the day came when she couldn’t work or come to the choir anymore.
She hadn’t thought about what else that could happen. If the choir sang her lyrics at a concert…
Remy looked at the older woman who was still smiling, more beautiful than ever, and she decided that that smile was worth it. The smile, the music, the promise of more music and the beauty - yes, it was worth coming out of the closet for.
She was a poet, a song writer, and she was proud of it.
Fandom: House M. D.
Rating/Genre: G/femslash (sort of)
Characters/Pairing: Remy “Thirteen” Hadley/OFC
Summary: Remy has kept three secrets from her co-workers, but they are all connected and maybe they can’t stay hidden forever…
Word count: 1 632
Spoilers/Warnings: No.
Notes: Written for the prompt House MD, Thirteen/OFC, writing a song requested by with_rainfall at comment_fic.
Remy Hadley still had a couple of secrets. House didn’t know, Foreman didn’t, not Taub or Chase or anyone. It was nothing serious, not dangerous, not a deep, dark secret. She just wanted to keep it to herself as long as possible, keep something away from their prying eyes.
On Wednesdays, she went to choir practice.
It was no big deal, not really. She had read studies about it, how choir singing is good for one’s health and general well-being. Music is good, being creative is good, and being it together in a group makes it even better.
One would think that she had enough of group activities, but this one was different. She was not ‘Thirteen’ there, nobody knew about her disease, nobody cared about who she was dating, what she had for breakfast, or what she did last weekend, they didn’t constantly make sex jokes and nobody tried to be better or more important than anyone else.
To sum it up, it was good for her.
Her second secret was that she had a crush on her choral director. And that, too, was good for her.
At first, she hadn’t really thought much about it. It was just a harmless little crush because really, how could any person in their right mind not have a crush on that woman?
The director of the choir was a woman in her late forties, tall and slim, very elegant. She was a true professional, a born leader, and the way she conducted the choir was extremely focused and powerful. She held the music in her hands, created it with her eyes, the choir kept her eyes fixed on her and followed her every command instantly, they took pride and joy in being the instrument in her hands.
In Remy’s eyes she was beautiful.
She knew that if House found out, he would to look at it like a mystery, a new symptom in the mysterious case of Thirteen, and would go on and on about her not making a move, being passive, afraid of something. He would insist that something was wrong if she didn’t sleep with the woman. And honestly, it wasn’t that Remy wouldn’t want to, but House just wouldn’t understand that she didn’t need to have and possess every woman she was attracted to, that sometimes, just taking a step back to observe and find rest in pure beauty could be enough.
At least, that was the way it had been for a long time. She was content with being just one of many in the crowd - choir singing really was teamwork at its very best - but then something happened that brought out her third secret.
Her third secret was the one that she was most desperate to keep to herself: She was secretly a writer.
Yes, Remy didn’t have a blog and she didn’t keep a diary, and there were no drafts of novels in her closets, but she scribbled down poems on napkins sometimes, on old bills and receipts. Then when she had kept them around for a while, she threw them away. She had them memorized by then if she found them worth to remember.
She had never told anyone about this and consequently, no one had ever read her poems. She had no intention of letting them be read, ever, or at least not until she had grown considerably older and felt ready for that kind of exposure. Now that she knew that she would most likely never reach that point of inner maturity and confidence, she knew that her poems were never going to be read, and she was fine with it.
What happened was that one night at choir practice, the woman she so admired let out a secret of her own: She was a composer.
She wanted the choir to sing a song she had written, and not that it was a surprise to Remy - that woman was so amazingly talented that she could do anything - but it still made her feel weak to her knees, shaken. The music was so beautiful that it brought tears to her eyes.
Until then she had thought of her adoration of the woman as just a silly and harmless straight crush but her emotions overpowered her and she knew that she had to do something. She had to write song lyrics. If she was ever going to show her writings to anybody, she decided, it was going to be to that woman.
Remy thought about for a while, unsure what to do. Could she really get that personal with this woman? There was no way of knowing if she would even be interested in writing a song together with someone, or if she would like what Remy wrote. But the more she heard the song that had prompted the idea, the more she knew that she had to take the risk. She told herself that it was unreasonable to be nervous; didn’t she have difficult conversations with people all the time? This time it wasn’t somebody’s life that was at stake. Just her heart and pride…
Nervous or not, one night after practice she went up to the woman to talk to her, as everybody else was walking out of the room.
Her knees were shaking a little, she was even close to rambling, and afterwards she wasn’t quite sure about what she had said or if she had made a fool of herself.
What she did know was that the answer had been yes. Yes to try to write a song together, yes to read some of Remy’s poems to see if there was something to work with.
Her head was filled with music when she went home that night and she didn’t even notice people around her. She was already silently trying out combinations of words, of ideas, images; she wanted to create something unexpected and inspiring, a worthy vessel for the wonderful music the amazing lady was going to compose.
Remy called in sick the next day. She knew there weren’t many things that were serious enough to be allowed to stay at home for, but she blamed fever and stomach illness.
She was lucky; they bought her lie and no one even came to check up on her to confirm that she really was sick.
In a way, it was like a fever. She worked with her pen and papers in a sort of delirium, a high without any other drug than her excitement, her secret love.
To her relief and astonishment, none of her co-workers suspected any ulterior motives to her few days of absence. When she went back to work, she was told that she looked kind of worn out, haggard even. She had forgotten to eat properly.
When Wednesday came again, she gave the result of all her efforts away to be read, judged and evaluated. She couldn’t even believe what she was doing, but she did it, and the magnificent woman all her dreams were about, she took the papers in her hand and thanked her with a smile.
What Remy wanted to do next was to pretend to be sick again; she could claim to have had a nervous breakdown and it would be very close to the truth. She wanted to hide in her bed, in the warm and safe darkness under her blankets, and never come out again, because there was no way she could survive this exposure of her soul.
Yet she went to work, and she made it through the week, and then she made it through another choir practice. She didn’t think that anybody could see it on her face that there was something going on; she was a master of secrets after all and her friends in the choir were nothing like her co-workers who habitually ripped each other’s souls apart in search of information. The choir, the room full of people, was Remy’s safe haven, the one place in the world where she felt that she was entitled to her privacy.
Then, when everybody was gone and the room was empty except for the two women, Remy’s fear disappeared.
“I like your lyrics,” the woman she loved said. “Thank you for letting me see them. I would really like to work with them, it means a lot to me that you want to do this.”
Remy felt like a high school kid with a teacher crush or an overwhelmed fangirl who suddenly meets her favorite celebrity. She blushed and stuttered.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m glad you like them, I wasn’t sure, but it means a lot to me, I can’t wait to see what you come up with, the music, I mean…”
“We don’t know the result yet,” the woman smiled, “but if it turns out okay, maybe the choir can sing our songs.”
Remy hadn’t thought about that. All she had cared about was to give something to the other woman, to offer her something of herself, something lasting and precious to make an impression. Something that would still be there when she was gone. And more than anything, she had wanted the music. It would be unique, created because of her, and it would give her comfort when the day came when she couldn’t work or come to the choir anymore.
She hadn’t thought about what else that could happen. If the choir sang her lyrics at a concert…
Remy looked at the older woman who was still smiling, more beautiful than ever, and she decided that that smile was worth it. The smile, the music, the promise of more music and the beauty - yes, it was worth coming out of the closet for.
She was a poet, a song writer, and she was proud of it.