HOUSE MD: Opposites
Tagline: Sometimes the last thing you're looking for, is the one thing you really need. Chase/OFC. (not a deathfic – at least no plans for such as yet, we'll see how it shapes up)
Disclaimer: I own nothing that is not mine. I'm just borrowing for a bit …
A/N: not sure how this story is going to go. The idea came to me tonight after Chases' failed attempt at celibacy (yeah, I'm pretty sure we all saw that one coming!) and I thought it would be fun to take a deeper look into where he's at right now. So *poof* story pops into my head! No idea if the other characters are going to play a role much (or at all – this really is pretty rough thoughts) and it's not designed to really fit into the plot anywhere other than generally s.7. Enjoy! Comments welcome and encouraged!
[Some random point in the story line:]
Chase closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he reached down and picked up the chart that at best was basically thrown in his general direction and was not a blatant attempt at decapitation-by-paper. The blond nurse who he still couldn't quite remember her name stalked quickly out of the room and he heard the door swish closed forcefully behind her. He didn't pretend to be something he wasn't around here. She knew that it was a good time and not happily ever after that he was offering. But the excuses rang a little hollow today. Especially after his recent failure at celibacy.
"Wow I might start wearing a helmet around here if I were you."
Chase looked up, startled to hear his thoughts voiced aloud. He saw a girl sitting in one the dialysis chairs just a few feet away from where he perched on the stool by the nurses counter. She was cute – 20 something with dark hair and long legs, but pale and the dark circles under her eyes made her look both older and somehow wiser too.
He smiled, putting on his "Charming-Doctor-Face" and reaching for something quippy to say so that he could go back to work: "All I'm likely to get are paper cuts … I think I can handle that."
"Highly unreported statistic of doctor's deaths," she informed him with complete seriousness, leaning her head back against the chairs padded headrest. "All that paperwork and resulting blood loss adds up you know. Before you know it doctors are dropping everywhere!"
Chase laughed despite himself and turned back just in time to see a satisfied smirk on her face.
"I've seen you around here before, haven't I?" he asked, sliding the stool closer and reaching for her chart on the side of the chair.
"Oh I've been around for a bit," she responded, quickly nabbing the chart before his hands could close on it and giving him a slightly disapproving/mocking finger wave before sliding the manila folder beside her leg on the other side of the chair.
"What are you in for?" he crossed his arms across his chest, taking on the best impression of a stern doctor he could muster while trying to hide a smile.
"Diagnosis before name? tsk tsk. You really have been on Dr. House's team too long."
"Where did you hear that?" he demanded, blinking in surprise, losing the posturing and forgetting for a moment where he was: that he was dealing with a patient and was supposed to be professional and objective.
"Nurses talk" the dark eyed girl observed, losing the smile and something almost sad looking out from those dark depths. "When you've slept with three of them on this floor alone in the past few weeks they tend to talk more."
Chase felt his mouth fall open in shock, this perfect stranger – worse this patient –was informing him about his sex life? Oddly enough they never covered the appropriate re-directing response to this in med-school and he was caught with his mouth hanging open and absolute nothing to say.
"I do think they have programs for that," she said into his silence, biting her lips together slightly as if trying not to smile, a mischievous glint back in her eyes. "7 Steps or whatever."
"I don't see how this is any of your business" his tongue was loosened and he felt a flush of anger rising at the suggestion that he was some sort of a sex addict—he'd had enough experience with addicts to be an expert and no patient was going to lecture him about it. "You're a patient, and not even mine," he consciously reminded her of the difference in their prospective places in this encounter but wasn't gratified to see even the smallest hint of shame or remorse in her expression. "You have no business to be commenting on my personal life and if it happens again I'll have to ask the hospital director to reschedule your appointments elsewhere." He was bluffing – Cuddy would probably chastise him for sleeping around the office before she jeopardized a patients' care, but he was angry enough now that he didn't give a shit if she complained about him.
But she only shrugged, pushing a strand of auburn hair that had escaped the braid to fall into her eyes back behind her ear.
"You're probably right," she said looking away briefly before meeting his eyes again.
Chase turned his back on her abruptly cutting off any further conversation. He didn't want an apology – he just wanted people to mind their own god damn business and leave him in peace. Not that he was able to find much of that anywhere anymore.
"But you should probably know," he felt his shoulders stiffen automatically as she spoke again, slightly louder a first to get his attention but he didn't turn and barely glanced back over one shoulder. "Becky's also just been treated for a couple STI and her last boyfriend was just diagnosed with HIV."
The words sent ice water down Chases spine, cooling any anger that might still be burning and settling with a sick feeling in his stomach. He'd been really drunk when he'd picked up Becky at the hospital charity function last week … he'd never be stupid enough not to wear protection … would he? It was all sort of a blur …
He felt himself swivel the chair around again without conscious thought and gave a disbelieving look to the girl, not even realising that he was asking a question without even asking it.
"Nurses talk," she said without a hint of judgement in the tone, and went back to reading her magazine as the next shift nosily came in and started getting ready for the day.
A few days, and a rather embarrassing visit to the clinic later, Robert Chase was back in the dialysis wing hooking up their most recent case: a 40 year old man with liver failure who was having the rather odd synethesia experience of actually feeling himself whatever he saw being done to other people, when he heard an all too familiar voice from the other end of the room. He looked up, trying to be not too obvious about it and yup, he was right: dark haired girl was back again.
She smiled at the nurse who took her over to one the chairs, saying something to make the other woman laugh as she walked away to get one of the other patients who's lines were having trouble settled.
"OUCH!" Chases patient yelled suddenly, pulling his arm away and recoiling in pain.
He quickly looked back down to the man in front of him in concern, only to see that he was whole inches away from the man's arm with the needle and nothing else appeared wrong.
"I haven't even touched you yet," Chase said, glancing over his shoulder at the rest of the room that was now staring at him like he was trying to murder the man. His eyes caught those of the girl across the room and she shook her head slightly, grinning while he took a deep breath and turned back to his patient.
"Sorry," the man said quietly, nodding his head across the way to where Chase could see a little boy who was that distinctive tinge of jaundiced yellow getting the large needle prodded about in his arm by an incompetent new nurse who couldn't find the vein. "But that really hurts!" the man observed, wincing again in pain and his own arm pulling back and away from Chases' harmless hand.
"It's okay. Just give me a second and close your eyes and I'll be right back," Chase said, watching while the grown man in front of him squeezed his eyes shut tight and held his arms tight against his body. He shook his head and turned back across the room. "Let me give you a hand with this one, you can watch what I do this time," he offered, smiling to take the edge off the harsh tone his voice had taken on when the boy looked up at him with tear brimmed eyes.
He took the needle in one hand, and smiled at the child, noticing the dinosaur slippers the kid had on.
"Hey do you happen to like dinosaurs?" he asked innocently, swiping at the small arm with a fresh alcohol pad and trying not to notice the bruises that were already forming from the earlier failed attempts.
The boy nodded, eyes glued to Chases' chest as he stretched the arm out and redid the elastic strip just below the shoulder. "I always like the pterodactyl best –they could probably fly so fast that nothing would ever catch them." He straightened the boys' arm out as he talked, rubbing lightly over the inner elbow with his thumb: it was a double trick, the gentle pressure got the skin sensitized to it so it wouldn't feel the needle as much and it helped him locate the vein to have a better aim the first time round.
"T-rex could get em" the boy mumbled, sniffing once but meeting Chases' eyes now.
"Really? I dunno, I think they were pretty fast flyers."
"No way – t rex would snap a dactyl right outta the air. They were the fastest," the kid observed proud of this knowledgeable fact he was able to display to a grown up.
"But they have such little hands," Chase said, already having inserted the needle he gestured with both hands only a foot or so apart and then reached for the machine to flip it on. He added a little flailing motion so that the kid laughed and tasselled his hair as he walked back to his patient.
"I can get this one!" the nurse said, quickly running over to help him with an eagerness that could mean only one thing: with one simple gesture to help out a patient another nurse had fallen for his blond-boy-next-door-looks and "sexy accent".
"Umm… that's okay. Dr. House is pretty strict about us doing everything ourselves so that we can monitor the patients' reaction at all times" Chase said the lie easily. Truth was that House didn't trust nurses with his patients when he could just make one of his highly trained fellows do it instead – double points: he got to insult the nurses and make the trio's lives miserable all at the same time. "Why don't you go and sit with him for awhile?" Chase suggested, motioning back to the by-now-forgotten child playing happily with a few small scale plastic dinosaur toys.
The nurse flashed him a smile and he turned back to his patient, trying to coax the man's eyes open again with a sigh.
A few minutes later Chase sat back, taking note of the flow of blood through the tubing and making a few quick notes in the chart. His patient was fully hooked up and he had about three hours to kill while he sat here and watched blood whirl through the machine. Pretty much as interesting as watching grass grow, but if he went back to House now he'd only be yelled at for being useless because he didn't wait to confirm Houses' newest theory about the dialysis being useless. He did have some clinic charting to finish up, and there was always paperwork that House neglected to fill out that would keep him busy … but he felt that there was probably something else he should do first, no matter how much he didn't want to…
It had been a very embarrassing trip to the clinic a few days ago, and more so at the pharmacy afterwards (not like he actually dropped off that particular prescription at the in hospital pharmacy) but he knew it could have been a lot worse before he got treatment if he hadn't been warned to get checked out. He owed the girl a thank you for that, and probably an apology for being such an unprofessional ass too.
Best to get this over with, he thought turning back to the rest of the room – only to find that the new nurse was trying to make another pin cushion out of the girl he was about to look for. It was one thing being new, but he'd just shown her how to find a vein and there she was stabbing about blindly again in utter incompetence. Chase rolled his eyes, his jaw setting in frustration. He couldn't very well sit by and let her torture the girl and then apologist for the other day – that would make him even more of an ass than he was sure she already thought he was. He got up and was about to make his way over and intervene when the girl looked up at his movement and caught his eye, shaking her head no.
Chase stopped and looked back at her in bafflement. It was one thing still being angry but to not let him help when he could clearly do better was insulting – he was a physician, he couldn't just sit by and watch a procedure done painfully when it didn't have to be. He saw the girl wince against her will, her fingers clenching automatically as the nurse obviously struck a nerve, the needle at least an inch into her arm and still not anywhere near a vein.
He shook his head and quickly walked over: let her be mad at him, he'd hook her up, apologise, and then they'd never have to deal with each other again. But he paused as he got closer and heard her speaking quietly, the nurse frowning in concentration.
"Remember," she cautioned "try feeling for the vein – it should be like a wet string, or really flimsy straw under the surface of the skin."
The nurses hand pressed hard above her inner elbow and Robert watched as she winced. "here?"
"Move down… and over," the girls hand guided the nurses wrist closer to where she should be and lightened the pressure. "Feel that?" she asked.
"Right here?"
"Yup, now just slide the needle in … bevel up," she reminded quietly, meeting Chases eyes while he stood behind the nurse watching, something indecipherable but not harmless in his watchful observation.
"There. All done," she said tiredly and the nurse smiled, proud of herself. "Uh, you might want to check on the woman over there though, it looks like the needle's slipped a little bit and she's starting to bleed," she gestured to someone behind Chase and he turned to see a small trail of blood snaking its way down an elderly patients arm from where the needle was inserted.
"Oh!" the nurse said, startled she moved quickly past Chase … but still had time to give him a flirty smile. He could only try and stifled a snort of disgust.
"You could have let me save you some of that pain," Chase muttered, coming over and checking the placement of the needle, his mood not being helped by the fact that this time it was perfect despite the littering of dark bruises on the girl's pale forearm. He leaned away and switched on the machine, checking the dials and making a slight adjustment to reduce the flow – she'd be here another half hour or so, but after repeated needle stabbing drawing a little less blood into her arm immediately would probably reduce the bruising and soreness.
"She had to learn somehow, might as well be on me. … Or maybe I'm just a masochist," she said smiling, but the tiredness in her voice and eyes belied the casual teasing tone.
"Yeah, S&M circuit really seems your scene," Chase commented, giving a pointed glance at the faded blue jeans, tee-shirt and well worn runners she wore.
"All part of my disguise – can't fight crime if everyone knew my secret identity."
He smiled despite his mood, and found himself pulling a stool over even though only a minute ago he'd wanted nothing more than to get this over as quickly as possible.
"I hear those capes can be a real hazard in the cross-town commute. Underreported statistic of whiplash injuries when they get caught in things." He said, hoping to see her smile and look a little less tired and he wasn't disappointed. "So secret identities aside, think I can know your name this time?"
She drew her eyebrows together and pursed her lips in mock intense concentration.
"It's Rhia. Pass me my bag for a sec?" she asked, pointing to the floor near his feet where a leather satchel was leaning against the side of the chair. He grabbed it only to raise his eyebrows in surprise as it turned out to be heavier than he thought and he mock hefted it up to rest beside her legs with a fake grunt.
"What have you got in there, rocks?" he joked.
"Yup," she answered seriously. He wasn't sure whether or not to believe her, or if she was just continuing with their joking until she pulled our a few palm sized pebbles and he couldn't help laughing loudly. "The contents of a woman's bag should always remain one of the great mysteries in men's lives," she told him with a wink.
She dropped the stones into her jeans pocket, next pulling out a book, then a reusable glass water bottle, sugar free gum and a tennis ball, before finally finding what she was looking for. She pulled out her hand, tightly closed around something and looked up at him.
"A peace offering," she said, holding out her hand palm up. "I know I said something the other day that got to you, more than me just being a total stranger inappropriately commenting on your sex life out of the blue. So I'm sorry. It just gets pretty boring in here and someone is always gossiping, and well, it's not like I can just walk away and not listen," she motioned to the tubing that wouldn't let her stray more than about two feet from the chair. "Peace? Or must I do the white flag karaoke routine?"
She opened her fingers and inside was a handful of coins.
"You're bribing me with spare change?" Chase asked, ready to laugh again, but as he picked up one of the coins he noticed links of silver and gold connecting it to the next one, and so on and so on so that they were all in a strand forming a circle. Small holes had been drilled through the metal of the coins rims and each was linked to one another with criss-crossing chains so small they looked like spiders webbing. He felt that the shape and size of some of the coins were off and brought it closer to his eyes to get a better look – each coin was from Australia. He looked up questioning at her and she shrugged.
"Some people bring back postcards … you're from Melbourne area right?"
"Yeah .. how'd you know?" he asked baffled again.
"I spent more time up north, but the southern accent is a little different," she shrugged again. "So you do know the idiom 'See one- Do one-Teach one' doesn't apply to nurses right?" she asked, startling him again … this was getting to be a habit of him underestimating her.
"Where did you learn how to do that?" he asked. Despite how House liked to criticise everyone around him, Chase wasn't stupid and he was feeling distinctly behind the game whenever he was around this girl.
"Told ya," she said scrunching up her nose unhappily like a bunny for a moment, "I'm here a lot."