Making Amends
The case is over; the patient's been sent home with his wife and his stash of idiocy-inducing cough syrup, and the team's left. House would have gone home already himself, but Wilson has a late meeting with the Board, and he doesn't feel like hanging out alone in the Amber Volakis Memorial Apartment. He'd rather wait for Wilson in his office.
He doesn't expect to find Chase at the conference table, writing up Idiot Patient's discharge summary. "First you hit me, now you're doing my paperwork?" He sits down across from the younger man. "You said you were sorry; I accepted your apology. You don't need to suck up."
"Still. Wanting the others to leave me alone is a bad reason to hit you."
"Bad reason, maybe, but good general plan. Manipulative and cunning." He puts on his best 'sage mentor' face. "You have learned your lessons well."
Chase shakes his head. "Perfect: the one time you deign to give me your approval, I don't actually want it." He holds House's gaze. "You do know it's not okay for people to hit you? I don't care if I had a good plan or whatever you think I—I shouldn't've done that."
"Oh, you were so raised Catholic," House says. "No way did one year in seminary give you this much capacity for needless guilt." Killing a man, he can see how that would be worth some pangs of conscience, even if the guy in question had Hitler-esque tendencies. But throwing a punch? Now they're in disproportionate reaction territory.
"It's not needless. I did something wrong."
House raises an eyebrow; hides a wince because that kind of hurts. "We're not still talking about me, are we?"
A long pause. Then, "At least this, I can make up for."
"You did: the satisfaction of seeing you'd grown a spine was worth it."
Chase's look asks which situation he's talking about, where forgiveness applies. House keeps his expression neutral, and Chase drops his gaze and goes back to the paperwork.
House watches him; takes inventory: dark circles under his eyes, so still not sleeping; no wedding ring on his left hand, so obviously he's counting the marriage a loss; more tension in his posture than the case would justify, since House had made the junior section put in the weekend.
"You just had a puzzle," Chase says without looking up. He writes something down that—House squints to read upside-down; at least Chase's handwriting is more legible than most doctors'—is probably about the patient's previous suicide attempt. "And I'm fine."
"You're never going to make it to the major leagues if you don't learn to lie better than that," House says.
"I'd rather not have to."
He only means the kind of lies that involve literally getting away with murder, though, so that's okay.
"House?" Wilson opens the conference room door, sticks his head in. "Ready to go home?"
"Yeah." He levers himself up, starts to follow Wilson out. Pauses in the doorway to look back over his shoulder at Chase. "No more paperwork. Go home. And stop with the guilt."
He can't prevent Chase from torturing himself. But at least he should know he doesn't have to do it on House's behalf.
END.