His plan had gone almost perfectly well. One patient and a couple of dirty tricks had landed him the money to hire back his team, and he could even be picky and choose whoever he wanted.
He'd started with Thirteen, but a phone call and two different visits later it became clear she was not budging, and House had the feeling that no amount of games or persuasion was gonna work this time. Taub had been easier. He had agreed almost immediately, even though it meant taking a pay cut from his surgery job with two new baby daughters to sustain, as well as two angry moms to deal with. So that left him with only Chase to convince, and he expected no resistance there.
"Did Chase change phone numbers?" he asked Foreman, when regular attempts to establish contact had failed.
"What?" Foreman said, digging his way out from a mountain of paperwork. The question had caught him off guard, and he was suddenly nervous.
"Chase. I want to hire him back. Taub said he took a surfing vacation or something. Do you have his contact info?"
"His contact..." Foreman hesitated, his expression turning somber.
"What?" House said, sensing his uneasiness. "Where is he?"
"I thought Wilson would have told you..." he answered, not making eye contact. House closed the distance between them and laid his cane on Foreman's desk. A list of bizarre possibilities started running through his head, and with a sudden jolt of pain from his leg he dropped all trace of mockery.
"Wilson didn't even visited me in prison! Tell me what? Is he dead or what?"
Foreman paused, and House's blood chilled. No way, someone would have told him if he was dead.
"He's..." Foreman started
"He's what? Spit it out!"
"He's missing. No one's seen him or heard anything about him for a month."
House breathed a little easier. God, was Foreman making it difficult. He briefly considered that he was getting played, but no, Foreman's face looked way too serious for that. But still, there was something he didn't know yet. He'd been missing for four months and no one had been the wiser, and he doubted Foreman had been this worried.
"A month? That's not really much is it? And missing where? Have you contacted his surfing buddies? He could be in a beach somewhere in Indonesia where there's no signal-"
"House, he's not in Indonesia…" Foreman cut him off, but he brushed off his comment. What would Foreman know about surfing anyways?
"How would you know? You haven't enjoyed yourself since you were a kid, you probably-"
"House!" he interrupted again, and something about the tone of his voice told House he was not to be taken lightly. "House, he was not surfing when he went missing. He was doing outreach work with the International Committee of the Red Cross, in the Amazon rainforest."
House paused for a second.
"Wait, what? Outreach work? What, like Doctors without borders? Are you kidding me, Chase would never…"
"He was surfing in the area but he got injured, and a team from the UK convinced him to do it. It was a three month temporary field position in a very remote location. He would send emails weekly until last month." he said in a monotone voice, like he had repeated those exact words time and time again.
"So… so he lost internet access, that's not unheard of" he said, but Foreman shook his head sadly.
"I've been in contact with the Red Cross. They had a big storm and lost track of the entire team. Two doctors, a paramedic, a midwife and a volunteer are missing. They sent me this." He said, then clicked on a couple of files in his computer. After a moment of silence, a familiar voice ran though the laptop's speakers, wrapped in unfamiliar background sounds
"This is Dr. Robert Chase with squad R34, um, just letting you guys know, the pick-up hasn't arrived yet. Rain is pretty heavy and we're at flooding risk so please send another team soon, we need to get out of here ASAP."
"When was that message sent?" House asked once it was over.
"Three weeks ago. The car that was sent to pick them up was found a week later on the rivers' edge, a landslide had collapsed a part of that road. They have found two of the nurses that worked with them in a village nearby, but they said they got separated. They have no idea where they are."
"Jesus! Why am I just hearing about this now?"
"House, I'm sorry, I thought you knew already. We've tried keeping it quiet for the moment since its such a delicate matter."
"Does Cameron know?"
"No."
"And no one's telling her about her dearest ex better half?"
Foreman paused. He had debated telling Cameron, but he knew Chase rarely talked to her, and he'd recently found out she had remarried and was pregnant. In the end, he figured leaving her in the dark would be the best for her.
"Don't tell her. Not until we know more."
House laughed. A wicked, scary laugh that made Foreman shift in his seat.
"Until we know more? What if we never know more, have you thought about that? What if six months pass with no news, will you tell her then? A year? Oh yeah, nice to see you, Cameron, oh, Chase, no, I haven't seen him since he disappeared a year ago in the fucking jungle!"
"Oh come on! What would you have me do?"
"Don't be such a coward and step up!"
"House, the woman's about to give birth, I'm holding out for some news. If there's not any in a month I'll tell her." he said, and House stepped back. Suddenly he could not remember what had brought him to the office in the first place. He had Foreman send him Chase's phone recording and the details of the Red Cross Office in Lima, but knew there wasn't really much he could do. Like Foreman said, all they had to do was wait.
Thanks for reading! This story is pretty much finished, I'm just editing. It will be around 9 chaps. Please let me know what you think!
