He has loved music once. He has loved life once. Now John Smith, the Doctor, a famous conductor only seems to be drifting through life, always on the verge of a mental breakdown in his shallow and pointless existence. Until he stumbles across a street musician, a young cellist named Clara, and suddenly it all makes sense again.

Crescendo

Chapter 1

John Smith couldn't say how it had happened. One minute everything was fine, the next he threw his baton in the vague direction of the cellist, he muttered curses his mother would have given him a damn good beating for as a child and then he was out of the door. One note was all it took. One note so wrong that it tore the piece apart, that it shattered the sound until it was no more but noise in his ears, almost enough to burst his brain. One note and the piece was utterly ruined. It haunted him all the way along the corridors, that one note, tormenting his mind until John felt the urge to bang his head against a wall in his rage and he only seemed to leave it behind once the front door was slammed shut behind his back.

Out there he took his first real breath in what seemed to have been years and John needed a moment to calm down. Just breathing. In and out. In and out. When finally he became aware that he could still hear music coming from the inside he started to move and followed the street down into London's rare summer heat.

He knew that his breakdown had been coming for months, he had felt it already at the back of his mind, the breaking point that would make him snap. He had loved music once, lived for it, lived for his job as a conductor. He was a genius and there wasn't supposed to be anything else in his life but that. But, truth be told, John had started to hate it a long time ago. The Doctor, they called him in the newspapers and music magazines. A strange nickname for a conductor, he had always thought. Well, that part was over because he was never going to touch a baton again, he just couldn't. For months he had dragged himself out of bed in the morning to go to work and hated every second of it and once he came home he no longer switched switched on his CD player. He couldn't stand it, the music he had loved so much and that was now making his head explode. Peace and quiet, that was all he wanted.

John reached into pocket of his jacket and retrieved his phone, though who he should call he wasn't quite sure. After he had dedicated his life to music there hadn't been much room for anything else, especially not for friends or a wife. There was, however, Missy, whatever she was to him or whatever he was to her. John sighed and dialled her number.

"I'm still at the office," she answered the phone with a slightly annoyed tone to her voice. That was Missy. Never friendly with him, never taking him seriously. But she was all he had.

"When can I come over?" John asked her, even though he wasn't sure he wanted her company today. Maybe, maybe not. It was a strange day.

He could hear her take a sharp breath. "An hour, but you better be up to it this time because I'm not wasting my spare time on another disaster."

John groaned. "Thanks, Missy," he replied dryly, "You really know how to boost a man's ego."

Then suddenly something else caught his attention. He recognized it immediately.

"Uhm, I," John stammered into the phone, "I have to go. See you later."

He dropped the phone back into his pocket and followed the familiar sound of Bach's cello suite. Five minutes ago he had been ready to renounce music forever and now he was chasing the poignant sound of a hauntingly beautiful song. John couldn't say how often he had heard this piece in his life, the amount probably couldn't even be counted, but he had never heard it quite like this. Even through the noise of the bustling city it was still so clear, almost eerie and it reached into the depths of him as he approached the corner, imagining who could be playing it like this. Surely it was an old man like himself who had been playing this particular piece for 40 years or more and knew it by heart but once John turned around the corner he saw only her.

A young woman, surely not even in her 30s, was sitting on a small stool, the cello propped up in front of her as she caressed it and John hated himself a little for thinking so, but he had never seen a woman as attractive and beautiful as her. Surely there had been others, more attractive and more beautiful, but they hadn't been able to make music like her. He had expected people to flock around her, to praise her for her playing but John only saw a handful of people who stopped and dropped some quid into her case before resuming their walk. The woman didn't appear to be noticing them at all.

The closer he came the more he saw of her. Her dark eyes that seemed to be drifting around, but never latching on to something, her brown hair that shone in the sunlight, her swift fingers and John sank down on the nearest café chair to watch.

The cellist was magnificent and he felt utterly spellbound as he drank in every note that came from her instrument, every single one of her movements. He wanted to do nothing but listen to her play for the rest of his life.

"Can I get you anything?"

John turned around to see who it was that had so rudely interrupted him in his trance and spotted a young water, obviously ready to take his order. He chose an espresso simply to get the man off his back. He didn't want anything to eat or drink, he just wanted to sit here and watch her.

Then his phone rang, providing yet another distraction and only now John noticed that more than an hour had passed since he had spoken to Missy.

"Where the hell are you? I left work early for you, you know?"

"I," John wanted to explain himself but once he turned around to where the cellist had been the whole time there suddenly was no one there anymore. She was gone and the silence she had left behind felt soul crushing and empty.

"You were just on your way and you'll be here in a few minutes?" Missy asked on the other end of the line.

John looked around, but he couldn't spot the cellist anywhere. She was gone and he hadn't even spoken to her. Why hadn't he spoken to her?

"Yes," he said absent-mindedly into the phone, "Yes, I'm on my way."

It took him more than just a few minutes to get to Missy because John had no idea where exactly he had wandered off to in pursuit of the music but half an hour later he had found his way back to Missy's house.

"I think I quit my job today," John said as he was lying on her bed and Missy sat right next to him, massaging him through his trousers.

She snorted. "Don't be silly."

"I'm not being silly. I stormed out of the building and I have no intention of going back," he explained and tried to concentrate very hard on what her hands were doing.

Missy leaned a bit further into the massage, dipping her hand beneath the waistband of his trousers to get a better hold of him. She squeezed hard and it felt good, but still it lacked a certain something. It just wouldn't grow hard. John groaned at the frustration of it.

"You need to relax," she whispered way too sweetly. Missy wasn't the sweet type and he thought she should better not try to be at all.

"I can't relax," John spat. He really wished he could just get it up now and get it all over with. The sweet release of coming inside a woman was what he truly craved now. To just sink into her and forget.

"Why don't you take a pill? I still have some-"

"The pill didn't work last time," he interrupted her angrily, slapped her hand away and sat up in bed. If this state was permanent, it would rob him of his last joy in life.

Missy crossed her arms in front of her chest and glared at him. John could already tell she would give him a lecture about wasting her time, so before that could happen he jumped out of bed, reached for his jacket and darted out of room.

John made his way through the streets, not knowing where he should be going to. Home? Nothing was waiting for him there and he really had nowhere else to go now. No job. No wife. No friends. His life just didn't make sense to him at all and for a while he wondered how it had come to this.

Somehow he found his way back to the little café but the cellist still hadn't returned, so John simply sat down and waited.