Disclaimer: I don't own House, M.D. or any characters.
Old Wounds
Introduction
It was two o'clock in the morning when Robert Chase finally trudged up the stairs of his apartment building and into his second-floor apartment. Once inside, he continued through the apartment into the bedroom, dropping his lab coat and bag on the way into his bedroom. Once there, not bothering to change, he collapsed, facedown, onto his bed, sighing in relief. Within seconds, he was deep in sleep, not expecting to have to wake up until sometime late the next day.
The last time he'd slept was over forty-two hours ago, not counting the one hour he'd managed to snatch while pulling his last ICU shift. This wouldn't have been a problem since he had gone through medical school, and then residency, after all and wasn't new to long nights, but it was swiftly becoming the norm for him to work sixteen, and sometimes even twenty, hour days. Most of the time when he came off, it was easier, and saved time, to just sleep in one of the ICU on-call rooms; this was actually the first time he'd been in his own apartment in nearly four days.
It was only two hours after he had gotten home when he was awakened by a piercing noise. Still with his eyes closed, he reached across to his nightstand to slap in the general direction of his alarm clock. After slapping at it for a couple minutes and not having the headache inducing sound stop, he finally opened his eyes and promptly realized that it wasn't his alarm at all, it being only six in the morning and he not having set it in the first place; his cell phone was the one actually making the noise. Debating whether or not to even bother fighting his way out of bed, he was off the next day, so no one from work should be calling; he finally decided to check who it was before dismissing the call outright.
One look at the phone's display had him groaning in dismay; flashing with each and every shrill ring was the word: House. Knowing in his gut that it would only mean being miserable if he answered, but also knowing that if he didn't, his boss was liable to come to his apartment and physically force him to speak to him, he flipped it open and answered.
"What do you want, House," he asked, his voice hoarse from sleep.
"Good morning, Chase," came House's voice, a voice entirely too cheerful for four am and made his already throbbing head ache even more.
"You called me at four am to tell me that?"
"Nope, I called you at four am to tell you to get your ass to the hospital; there's a patient coming in from Princeton General who needs to be admitted, and you're going to be his welcoming party," he crowed gleefully.
Chase frowned, "That's the attending's job, not mine."
"Ovit's on tonight, and he's a moron who doesn't know the difference between his posterior and his anterior; I want you to do it, so get down there, now!"
Ignoring the fact that Ovit had clearly graduated medical school and was more than qualified to do a patient intake, he only answered on the second part, "If you don't want Ovit to do it, then get Cameron or Foreman to; I'm off today."
"Cameron gets snippy if I wake her up before five, and you don't want me to call and interrupt Foreman when he's spending a night with his girl, do you? That would be just plain mean. Besides, I'm the boss, and you're the minion, ergo, you do what I say when I say."
Before Chase could even reply, he heard the click that meant House had hung up on him. Growling in frustration and pent-up anger, it took a monumental effort for him to resist the urge to throw his phone against the bedroom wall. Getting to his feet, he took a second to calm himself before grabbing up his coat and heading out the door. Looking into his rearview mirror at his tousled hair and the bags beneath his cloudy, blue-green eyes, he ruefully thought that he resembled what a zombie should look like. Putting his key in the ignition, he began the familiar route to PPTH.
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