DISCLAIMER: House, M.D. and its characters are the property of David Shore, NBC, and Universal. No profit sought from this work. NOTE: I started doing research because I wanted to do a story involving seizures and I found out that this progression is actually possible. It's kind of frightening that this could actually happen, but it's cool for my story.
"Chase, wake up," Cameron shook her fiancé lightly, trying to rouse him. He groaned and squeezed his eyes together, trying to shut her out. "Come on, time to get up."
"No," he whined. "Just got to sleep."
She frowned, feeling sorry for him. The Dilantin was causing insomnia. She would mention it to Foreman. "Come on. It's your first day back to work."
Chase opened his eyes at that. "I'm not going." He rolled over, turning his back to her.
"Everything's going to be fine," she promised. "You'll see."
"They should have just fired me," he muttered.
"They can't fire you for being sick."
Chase sighed and pulled the covers back, awake despite his exhaustion. "No, but they can give you one hell of a demotion." He swung his legs to the side of the bed and stood up, careful to not do so too quickly. He had lost his ability to trust his own body.
Cameron decided it was best to not comment on his job status. "What would you like for breakfast? I'll cook while you're in the shower."
"You don't have to take care of me," Chase said, brushing past her on his way to the bathroom. His voice was low and he avoided looking at her.
She took a deep breath. They had had this conversation before--many times.
The first time Chase told her she did not have to take care of him, he had been smiling. She had only warmed a can of chicken noodle soup when she got home from work. When she delivered it to his bedside on a tray, she may as well have been bringing him the world. Too sick with bronchitis to go into work and feeling to poorly to make the effort to cook something, he had responded to the soup with heartfelt gratitude, not for the soup as much as for the gesture itself. He had been alone for a long time and even when he was not alone so many years ago, he was the one doing the care-taking.
The next time Chase told her, "You don't have to take care of me," neither one of them was smiling. Both had been trying to protect the other from their fears because things had gone very wrong, very quickly. Chase's respiratory infection gave way to a case of haemophilus influenzae meningitis. Cameron doubted Chase even remembered most of that period. His fever had soared and his white blood cell count had skyrocketed. Despite timely diagnosis and treatment, the meningitis had done its damage.
Once more Chase said, "You don't have to take care of me." This time they had been sitting in an office with Foreman who was not there as their friend, but as Chase's doctor. He explained to them what they both already knew. The infection had reeked havoc on Chase's brain.
Foreman had no idea how long the seizures would last, but he promised they would find a regimen of medication to control them. He averted his eyes as Chase's arm jerked in response to his vow. "It will take trial and error," he said. "I'm so sorry. There's no way I can give you clearance to perform surgery."
"I'm not stupid," Chase snapped back at him. "I know I'm useless as a doctor." The tears in his eyes betrayed to both Cameron and Foreman that his anger was an attempt to mask his despair.
"Chase, you're not useless. There are plenty of things you can still do." Somehow he could not manage to elaborate on what those things were.
The fourth occasion that brought about Chase's saying, "You don't have to take care of me," was a trip to Cuddy's office. They knew ahead of time the first part of what was coming. Chase was losing his position in the surgical department. What they had not expected was to find House there with Cuddy offering Chase a position as a senior attending in Diagnostics. Since Foreman had gone back to neurology full time to avoid working with Hadley, the spot was open.
"Was this Foreman's idea?" Chase asked, certain the other man just felt sorry for him.
"It was my idea," House stressed. "You're good at this."
"That explains why you fired me."
"Actually, it does."
"I don't need your charity," Chase rebuffed. Lately even positive approaches stung him.
"What? You think you're going to get off easy? Look, Twitchy, you'll be working with Limpy and Terminal. Diagnostics is the one department where you won't be treated like the special needs section."
Chase had no response, he only looked away from them all while Cameron squeezed his hand in a show of support.
"It's the best I can offer you," Cuddy told him. "To be honest, no one else is willing to take on the liability of having you in their department. Diagnostics or disability. We can go either way you want."
Even broken, Chase had too much pride to consider disability.
It had taken a while for Foreman to find the right medication to get the seizures under enough control for him to allow Chase back to work. And, truthfully, he might have been making the call too early, but he was trying to work for the good of his whole patient. Chase had become so depressed that Cameron practically begged him to let Chase go back to work. Foreman agreed only after he made a pact with House that Chase would not be left alone with any patient for now.
Cameron shook away the memories of the past couple of months. She closed her eyes and found herself wishing that Chase's day would go well and that he would feel like he still had a purpose and still had a place as a doctor. Had she not believed it was a useless endeavor, she might even concede that her wish was really more of a prayer.
Twenty minutes later, Chase was showered, dressed, and picking at a stack of pancakes she set on the table before him. "They're really good," he said.
"I'm glad you like them," Cameron responded. She sighed, seeing that he had taken about three bites. "Would you like some juice?" she offered.
"No, thank you."
She frowned, frustrated by watching him. He was nothing if not polite and she found herself wishing he would react to something instead of being this droopy and defeated. She actually missed the defensiveness he had shown with his colleagues because she knew when he was defensive it was because he was still fighting for himself.
The fight had disappeared. It had been destroyed by daily bouts with epilepsy. There were fewer grand mal seizures now, but there had been enough that he had become extremely cautious. He would not join her when she went to the grocery store. He was never in the mood to go out for dinner to see a movie. She knew he was afraid of seizing in public and of being helpless before strangers. She suspected he was afraid of seizing in private as well. They had not had sex since before the bronchitis.
She watched him continue to make a meager effort to consume the pancakes. For the first time in her life, she really did not know what to do for someone she loved. With her first husband, she had known there was really nothing she could do. They had not had to deal with uncertainty. But things were different with Chase. Everything was uncertain at this point--would he get better? Would this regimen of medication be the answer? Could he get back to a relatively normal schedule of duties at the hospital? Would he learn to trust himself again? Would he trust her? She wanted to hold him and to make love to him. She wanted to show him that she still felt safe with him. But she was afraid that if she pushed, Chase might fall into a deeper depression.
It would take time to find the answers to these questions and time was what she had to give him. So she would keep doing what he said she did not have to do. She would take care of him. She was not going to give up on him or them even if he had given up on himself. It did not matter how long the road was. She was on this journey for the duration.