TITLE: Eden Sank to Grief
AUTHOR: shutterbug_12
PAIRING: House/Stacy
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: House takes Stacy to a baseball game with an ulterior motive.
DISCLAIMER: Don't own them. Make love, not lawsuits.
NOTES: A series of twelve episodes that chronicles House and Stacy's relationship. Title taken from "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost. Apologies for the delay. Finals week and preparations for the holidays put a halt on things for a while. Many thanks to _vicodin, who read this after a crazy week of studying, and maybebaby1280 for the beta and their wonderful suggestions. Feedback and concrit is always welcome.



September 1996

Car horns had no business masquerading as alarm clocks, Stacy decided as she rolled onto her side, her legs tangling in the bed sheets.

She groped blindly for the alarm clock and brought it to her face—10:08. She sighed into the pillow, then reached across the bed, frowning when her fingers touched the cool fabric of Greg’s pillowcase. For a moment, she imagined—hoped—that Greg lay just out of reach, his head resting on the corner of the mattress, his arm dangling over the edge of the bed.

But, as she squinted against the sunlight, she found Greg’s half of the bed occupied only by a baseball cap, a yellow Post-It stuck to the bill. Propping herself on her elbow, she peeled the note from the bill. The message was a jumble of messy scribbles, probably written in the dark: Got called in. Back around 10. Be ready to go. Wear this with something casual.

Her fingers traced the threads of the raised logo—an orange interlocking NY. Outside, the car horn trumpeted a Morse code of impatient beeps. Stacy felt the tug of an affectionate smile as she hurried out of bed and began rifling through the closet.

By the time she climbed into the passenger seat of Greg’s car, the incessant beeps had replaced her smile with a tight-lipped scowl. She stared at him from beneath the bill of her cap. “Were you trying to wake up the whole neighborhood?”

He adjusted his own cap—a ragged version of hers, faded and bearing white sweat stains near the edges. “Just you,” he said. “It obviously worked.” He smirked, pleased with himself.

“There’s a boy a few doors down learning the trombone. I bet he’d be thrilled to make a few bucks next Saturday morning. Play a personal concert. 9 a.m. is good for you, right?”

Greg rolled his eyes as he steered the car away from the curb. “You should be glad I woke you up.” He fished inside the pocket of his jacket. “Check it out,” he said, a tinge of excitement in his voice as he extended a pair of tickets under her nose. “Mets at Philadelphia. I scored them from Lenny—or Larry. The short guy in Radiology, the one with the mustache.”

She eyed him skeptically, never glancing at the tickets, and watched as his eyes flickered from the road to her face. His Adam’s apple bobbed with a forced swallow. “You’re lying,” she challenged.

He shoved the tickets back into his pocket. “Am not.”

“So I wouldn’t find those tickets on your credit card statement?”

“No.”

“Or on Wilson’s statement?”

Greg worked his jaw, but didn’t reply.

She celebrated a tiny, internal triumph and wagged her finger at him. “You’re trying to change my opinion. Last week, I told you that I thought baseball was boring, and you rushed to defend it.” She lowered her voice in an attempt to imitate him. “But it’s better in person. TV doesn’t capture the atmosphere of the game.”

“That sounds nothing like me.”

She ignored his comment and poked his shoulder with her finger. “This is your last-ditch effort to change my mind.”

“No,” he said, having the audacity to look hurt. “I just want to spend time with you.”

She raised her eyebrows, not buying his words for a moment.

“And it is better in person,” he mumbled, refusing to meet her eyes as he drove.

~~~

“You know,” Stacy said, kicking a plastic souvenir cup away from her foot, “TV really doesn’t capture the atmosphere of the game.” She narrowed her eyes at the man sitting to her left. He had been guzzling Budweiser for the last three innings, littering the ground around his seat with trash. If the man understood the concept of personal space, he failed to respect it and had commandeered her armrest with a nudge of his sweaty forearm. Stacy had recoiled in disgust. City of Brotherly Love, she thought. Right.

Beside her, Greg mumbled an incoherent response, oblivious to her sarcasm as he threw his head back to toss a peanut into his mouth. A modest pile of shells grew between his feet. She leaned toward him, about to drop the litterbug a loud hint and commend Greg for his neatness, but a wooden crack from the field drew her attention. Her eyes followed the path of the ball into the right fielder’s glove.

She nodded toward the fielder. “That’s where I played when I was little. I hated it.”

Greg slowly faced her. His eyes lit up with the pleasure of a sudden epiphany, and he released an airy snort. “So, the truth comes out. You think baseball is boring because you got stuck in the reject position.”

“It’s not a reject position.”

“Not for older players. But young kids naturally try to pull the ball, and since most of them are right-handed batters, the left fielder usually gets most of the action. So coaches put their worst player in right field.”

“Hey, I was pretty good. The game just wasn’t exciting, so I—” She cut herself off, dangerously close to divulging her childhood interest in dandelion chains. “—never paid much attention.”

“The hallmark of a future all-star.” He popped another peanut into his mouth.

“I could throw just as well as any of the boys in my neighborhood.”

“I’m guessing you can’t even hit the mascot over there.” He laid a peanut in his palm and offered it to her.

The mascot, covered in vibrant green fur, resembled an overstuffed toy animal and reminded Stacy of a bizarre breed of Muppet. It stood several feet away, attempting to recruit fans for an impromptu performance of the YMCA. Stacy blinked. “That’s their mascot?” she asked. “What’s it supposed to be, an alien?”

He shrugged, a grin playing at the corner of his mouth, and rolled the peanut in his palm.

A moment passed before she mirrored the challenging squint of Greg’s eyes, plucked the peanut from his hand, took aim, and fired.

Stacy held her breath. As the peanut sailed over the rows in front of them, the mascot merrily shimmied into the aisle and revealed an unobstructed path to the back of a security guard’s head. She clasped one hand over her mouth as the peanut struck the guard, who spun to face the crowd with clenched fists. Beside her, Greg dropped his bag of peanuts to the floor and pushed all of the inculpating evidence under the seat in front of him. Stacy sunk low in her seat and peeked from beneath the bill of her cap.

The guard started to climb the steps, his eyes scanning the seats and periodically pausing on potential suspects. Stacy heard her blood thundering in her ears. Her fingers slid along Greg’s arm, feeling his body shake with bottled laughter, and gripped his hand in a plea for silence. She could visualize his face—his eyes squeezed shut, mouth tightly sealed, but looking as though he were about to burst with unrestrained glee. She tightened her hold and dug her nails into his palm, hoping to kill his spontaneous bout of laughter before it passed his lips.

Near the end of their row, the guard paused, and she fought against the urge to lower the bill of her cap and cover the guilt stamped all over her face. Instead, she hazarded a glance at Greg. He was staring straight ahead, his lips pressed together, his face red with the effort of holding his breath. Never before had she wished to deny him oxygen, but she knew that, if he drew one breath, laughter would explode from him like steam from a pressure cooker and incriminate both of them.

As the color of Greg’s face changed to an alarming shade of cranberry-red, the guard huffed and continued his march up the aisle. Her grip on his hand loosened, and Greg immediately erupted with laughter. Fighting giggles herself, she peered over her shoulder to watch the guard disappear into the alcove. But the press of Greg’s hand on her jaw urged her to turn, and she let him guide her into a short, playful kiss. He snickered into her mouth before pulling back, smiling and breathless.

“Screw the game,” he said. “Let’s get another bag of peanuts. We’ll go to the upper deck and pick targets.”

Stacy swatted his shoulder and cast a glance at the floor, spying several stray peanut shells. “Great idea,” she drawled. “I didn’t meet my quota for public embarrassment today.”

“Oh, come on. That wasn’t embarrassing. That was—”

“Say ‘entertaining’ and I’ll throw you off the upper deck.” She fought against a smile. “Shut up and watch the game.”

When he lobbed an empty peanut shell at her forehead and flashed a grin, revealing a pair of boyish dimples, she stopped fighting and let her smile spread across her face.