Prelude, Op. 10, No. 6, in B minor

[rubicks_complex]

The last thing House really expected to discover when he entered the bar was a piano sitting in the corner. He was in between waiting for his next dose of Oxycontin from Cuddy, he was bored, he was in pain, he was aggravated from pretty much everything, he wanted a drink. Or two. Maybe three. Or, hey, maybe even four. Enough drink to take the edge

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[takingcareof]

River walked into the dining hall, boots on for once, intent upon some more of the food. She wondered if there would be those cheesy - what had Dean called them? Potatoes? - again; they'd been quite good. Protein pastes were satisfying in the purely gustatory, elemental sense, but she remembered Simon explaining that food could be pleasurable in itself, like touching or dancing.

She walked toward the tables of food, noting to her delight that there was a plate of mashed potatoes, with a generous helping of orange shavings on top that she assumed was cheese. So far, the hotel's offers of material things had not been malevolent - key words so far - and so River took a chance, figuring the odds were in her favour.

She sat down to eat, but only a few bites had made their way down her gullet when she heard a plinking of keys. A pianoforte? She'd heard piano music before, on holovids. The sound up close and personal was jarring, or at least it was until a melody started to unwind from its innards

[takingcareof]

River nodded, relieved that she wouldn't have to explain it again. Sometimes she wondered if these people were that slow, rather than her own intellect being so fast. "Sam," she pronounced, one clipped syllable. "Do you speak Mandarin? We would have called him dà xióng māo." She giggled a little. "Giant panda."

[rubicks_complex]

Well, at least she giggled -- that meant she had relaxed a little more. House relaxed, too, his shoulders loosening as he gave her a faint, thin-lipped smile.

"Mandarin?" House replied. "Wo bu ming bai," he added, his pronunciation highly incorrect. He knew a few basic phrases in Mandarin, but never really got the accent or pronunciation right.

"Giant panda, eh?" he continued. "That's got to be some unfortunate looking giant."

He faced back around on the piano stool and scooted across to make some room. He patted the spot beside him with his hand. "Mandarin your first language? No offense, but your eyes aren't exactly slanted."

[takingcareof]

He did speak some. How interesting. But his pronunciation was radically different than hers. Was it dialectical, or just poor?

But he had questioned. "Běn zú yǔ èr," she replied. "Two mother tongues." How strange his smile was. It looked like hers - a forgotten, poor cousin of other expressions. Still. She could see his eyes, how the pupils were faintly narrowed. He was still curious.

She had a knife in her boot. She'd risk it. Sitting down delicately on the stool, she looked over at him, and rattled off the explanation she'd given before. "The last remaining superpowers of Earth-that-Was were the United States of America and the People's Republic of China. In my world, we speak both languages." Present tense. Serenity still had to exist.

[rubicks_complex]

So, House was expecting some kind of explanation that she was adopted. He was expecting... Actually, he wasn't sure what he was expecting. It was weird enough that she spoke of doctors like they'd experimented on her. He didn't expect her to talk about some kind of Earth-that-Was, as though Earth was in the past tense and her speaking of some other kind of world.

He blinked at her, looking blank. He then looked away, the same blank expression on his face. "Okay..." he replied slowly.

In a way, House was kind of used to weird things happening now. There it was again -- that complacency that his life and his world was no longer how he viewed it, that he was accepting how weird his life had become. He scratched his head, then dropped his hand back to his lap, turning his attention to River again.

"Earth-that-Was?" he asked. "This is more like Earth-that-Is." Not that he had any idea where this Hotel was actually situated, but he assumed it was at least on Earth

[takingcareof]

Oh, dear. River frowned, seeing his confused face. "I know this is Earth-that-Is. Dean said so." She rolled her eyes, not sure if he noticed, but not caring. She could hear the sarcasm in his tone, and wrinkled her nose in response. "I'm not from the future. You're from the past." She shrugged. "Could be a scientific explanation for this ... place. Pocket universe. Photon packet. Mass hallucination. Breaching the space-time continuum ain't easy."

[rubicks_complex]

House looked back to River, the expression on his face now somewhere between incredulous and surprised. Not moments before he was talking to her like she was a little girl, trying to decipher her strange anagram ways of speaking, and now she was talking about photon packets, mass hallucinations and breaking the space-time continuum?

This place, he was certain, couldn't get any weirder. It just couldn't.

"Well, thank god for Dean, then," House replied dryly. "Sounds like a real champ. And just for your information, you are from the future. I am from... the now." He looked away, scowling down at the piano. "Whatever that is," he muttered.

And who the hell really knew when 'the now' was. Two months felt like two weeks, so for all he knew, an entire year could've gone by in Princeton and he was still stuck in the mind frame that only a month or so had passed. Maybe he was from the past. Maybe she was from the future and he was from the past and they'd both met in the present--

What the hell was this, Back To The Future? "There's

[takingcareof]

River nodded. Now he was starting to understand, though he looked shocked. "Even the hotel." She shifted on the hard stool. Science was dangerous, yes, but sometimes its handlers' motives were pure. "Even if the answer's insane. Makes sense somewhere. Nothing in any world that can't be explained." Sanity was completely relative, after all. In her world, someone who didn't speak Mandarin and needed a help to walk around would have been thought nigh on strange. Here, House just seemed like part of the woodwork.

She looked over at him, though, and was surprised by what she saw; his muscles were held tautly now, his eyes clutching a scrap of what might have been intellectual panic. "Not my intent to be confrontational," she told him, voice calm now. "Stuck here - I'll smile and curtsy. Friendly like. Unless crossed."

[rubicks_complex]

House threw a quick sideways glance at River before turning his attention to the empty vicinity of the bar.

"Unless crossed? That's good to know," he replied in a dry tone. He reached for his cane and then looked back to River. "Me, stuck here - I don't do the smiling and curtsying thing. I have a cane, though, and I'm not afraid to use it, if crossed."

He needed to go for a walk. Or something. To try and get his head around the possibility that where he was in this hotel was perhaps not the present. Or the past. Or... He anxiously rubbed his jaw before he made to stand up. Yeah, he certainly didn't like the idea of being anywhere that wasn't the present. Coming to terms with being a prisoner here was bad enough.

[takingcareof]

"Is that why you carry it?" River asked. He appeared to need some form of self-defense, though whether it was due to age or cynicism, she wasn't certain.

She watched him stand up, satisfied that at least he could do that without much assistance. Still, he looked trapped now, either bored or afraid or both; that rub of the jaw was a giveaway. She stood up too, taking a step away from him. "We can still see your sun. No need to fear." She wasn't afraid of the hotel. It was starting to bore her. It would have bored her long ago if not for Alice and Dean.