Chapter 1 – A bolt from the blue
"Your mother's NAME, please! Her maiden name! Not something else, no matter what you called her at home. Come on! For God's shake, it's not so damn hard to remember, is it!"
Chase was pulled back from his daydream and gaped as a child, who have just realised how cruel the world can be. He shaked his head slightly and looked up at House, who was now standing in front of him, twisting the pen angrily in his hand.
"Pardon. I'm just…It's Chloe Pike. Chloe Allison Pike."
"Oh, thank God! Finally! If it goes this fast, than maybe we'll be finished with this very tricky questionary by the end of the day!"
"I'm sorry. I'm just tired."
"Than use your time for sleeping instead of visiting some 'high' women with brown hair in the middle of the night!"
"House! My time, my business! And, by the way, I was not…"
"Yeah, yeah…not jumping her, but giving a sympathetic hug...I don't care what you two do with each other unless it's not interesting…"
"House!"
"Place of Birth?"
"Sydney, Australia."
"Date of Birth?"
"1980.03.18"
"Fine! Now let's get over that cupping!"
"I hate annual checkups!"
"Maybe that's the only common point we share. Be glad that it's me doing it and not Foreman."
At this point Chase was not too sure why to be glad at all. He was really tired after working like mad all week, losing his dad not quite a month ago and doing this whole annual checkup-thing with House. He sighed as House was finishing with the cupping and runned through his floppy hair with his free hand.
"Done?"
"Yeah. You have no tests left. I'll inform you in 2 days whether you are dying or not. Go!"
"Thanks. See you on Monday!" he said and sleeked out of the room before House could find him with another snappy remark, which was the last thing he needed right now.
House stared after him for a while and sat down with the paper work going hend in hand with the annual checkups. He has already finished with Cameron's and Formen's final reports. Chase's blood sample was the last thing he had to take down to the lab and wait to get the results back, around Monday morning, to get over the whole stuff for another year.
Than again he had everything else to fill in Chase's report, so he decided to work a little ahead. He glanced down at Chase's personal information on the top page lying in front of him.
Name: Dr. Robert Chase
Yes, Chase was a bit out of this world lately after his father's death, and he didn't want to push him so hard, though that was exactly what he did.
Place of Birth: Sydney, Australia
Hah, his accent…
Mother's Maiden Name: Chloe Allison Pike
House stopped. It was like a bolt. How could he forget it 10 minutes ago. "Chloe Allison Pike," he muttered. "Oh, dear God! That's impossible! She can't be..."