Hey, guys! Spekk here (: This is my first fic, so reviews are appreciated. This may end up as a one-shot; we'll see. The beginning starts out as more than a little angsty -- but it gets better from there, I promise! -- and takes place pre-Lockdown. Dedicated to the one and only Wilman for editing this for me -- you know who you are.
If you're wondering about the title of this, it stems from this quote:
"House: You're fired.
Chase: What, because I yelled at you?
House: Because you've been here the longest, learned all you can, or you haven't learned anything at all. Either way, it's time for a change.
Chase: Fine."
Disclaimer: if I owned House, then I would totally have Chase marry me. Unfortunately...
Tuesdays.
God, Chase hated them. He hated everything about them; hated waking up in the middle of the night after a terrible mixture between a beautiful dream and a nightmare; hated reliving memories in the bleak light of dawn; hated thinking about her until he could think no more, until the tears started to fall of their own accord.
And that was just ridiculous. Why should he cry? Chase had nothing to cry about; he was better off this way. They both were. She was never meant for him, and Chase should have seen that before. He had told himself that they were just going through a rough patch like every married couple did. And then she had returned only so that he could sign the divorce papers. Sadistic? Yes. Cruel? Yes. Selfish? Yes! But in a way…
Had he really ever been that petty, that small-minded? Had he really approached her every Tuesday to declare his undying love, or was that just another of his absurd dreams? It seemed that that was in a totally different world than the one he lived in now. Maybe living was overstating the existence he staggered through every day.
Chase rolled over on to his side, staring blankly at the wall. Small blemishes pockmarked the plaster. He gazed dully at the dots for several minutes while the luminescent green numerals of his alarm clock cast a ghostly glow on his bed: 4:53 AM, they read. Too early to go vent to a bar tender while nursing a beer – the bars wouldn't be open yet – and too late to try to forget her touch by replacing it with that of another woman.
Today was Tuesday. He knew that without even looking at the calendar that was hung with deceptive jauntiness on his bedroom door. He knew that because he had woken up at 2:26 in the morning and had stayed awake since then, unable to close his eyes. He wasn't going in to work today. Chase generally did, even on Tuesdays; kept up a brave face and trudged through House's torment in a caffeine-induced haze.
Not today, though. Today was the Tuesday of all Tuesdays. One year since the divorce. Chase had long ago gotten over being sensitive about the word divorce: it was much worse to look into the eyes of others and to see the pity there, to hear their sympathy expressed in trite, petty terms of condolence: I'm so sorry to hear about the… the break-up, or if there's anything I can do to help, I'd be glad to; it's terrible, your… separation, or sometimes even, I hope everything's okay, Robert, with the… annulment.
Last time Chase had checked, there had been no taboo on the D word, but apparently there was some unspoken rule that he wasn't in on.
With a sigh, Chase's gaze flicked to the bedside table. Maybe there was a way to soothe the hollow aching in his chest. Hah – a broken heart. How… hilarious. He'd always thought it was a metaphor thought up by the songsmiths of the early 70s, but no – there was a pain that resided where his heart used to be. Two six packs of cheap beer resided beneath his table, while a glass left uncleaned from a couple weeks ago rested on a well-worn paperback book. Sitting up, he pushed the sheets to one side, blinking in the dim half-light. He grabbed a bottle from the table and, not bothering to decant it into the glass, emptied the contents into his mouth.
He pulled a face. The taste was not particularly pleasing at this hour, and the beer was stale and distinctly room temperature-ish. Still, if he was going to get drunk, he might as well do it right. Taking another gulp, he pulled the two six packs to the side of his bed and resigned himself to a terrible hangover the following morning.
--
"Where's the wombat?" House snapped, rapping his cane impatiently on the faux wood pattern of the table.
Foreman glanced up. Unlike Thirteen and Taub, Foreman was leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed mildly over his lab coat. "Aren't you excited? We finally have a Lupus case," he pointed out dryly, while Thirteen hid a smile.
"They all look like Lupus cases," House insisted. "They simply aren't. So we might as well cross off Lupus." Striding over to the whiteboard situated in the corner of the office, he scribbled a black X over the Lupus he had initially written. In the bottom corner, he scrawled in large letters, Wombat? and then underlined it several times for emphasis. Foreman rolled his eyes.
"Well?" House barked, spreading his arms and narrowly missing knocking down a model of the human brain that was perched on his bookshelf. "Aren't any of you heartless creatures worried about the whereabouts of Cameron's lesser half?"
Taub looked pained, and he steepled his fingers patiently. "The patient is exhibiting all of the symptoms of Lupus," Taub objected, glancing first at Foreman – as if for approval – and then at House. "Polycyclic annular lesions on her neck, and she responded well to the corticosteroi –"
"Do none of you care where Chase has gone?" House interrupted loudly, thumping his cane against the legs of the table. "Jesus, I know you're cruel, cold-hearted bastards, but I didn't realize that I'd trained you quite this well."
"Why do you care?" Thirteen retaliated, putting out a hand to steady the table. House shot her a look and opened his mouth to reply, but she continued, "It's not like you ever have before." She exchanged glances with Foreman, who added, "He's probably just late. Give him a chance, House. We have a patient now."
House snorted, letting more derision enter in that single sound than could be expressed in any amount of words. "Me? I care for Chase," he simpered mockingly. "I'm just worried about him, that's all. He's not answering his pages," he continued in the same high-pitched tone. Thirteen rolled her eyes, raising a hand to brush a few strands of hair from her face. "But now that you mention it, Foreman, you have a point. Our potential Lupus patient could be dying while not receiving her Lupus treatment. So you'd better go find Chase so that you can be back quickly to give her medication, shouldn't you?" His expression remained mocking, but a note of triumph had crept into his tone.
There was a pregnant pause while his team digested this, and a scraping of chairs filled the room as Taub and Thirteen rose to join Foreman by the door, resigned to their fates. "We might as well get this over with so we can just treat the damn patient," Taub muttered to Thirteen out of the side of his mouth. Thirteen graced him with a somewhat rueful smile, pulling on her coat and taking a step after Foreman down the hospital halls.
Behind them, House gazed after the trio with a smirk before something seemed to catch his attention. He limped over to the whiteboard, erased the heavily underlined Wombat? from before and wrote in thick letters, It's NEVER Lupus! After adding the final dot to the exclamation mark, House stood back to survey his work, smiled, and then sauntered over to Wilson's office for a leisurely chat.
--
"He must know what day it is," Thirteen pointed out to Foreman while he slowed for a stoplight.
Foreman turned to her to give her a slow, skeptical look. "Of course he does. He's just screwing with us. You know House." He paused, slammed his palm down on the horn, and added loudly, "Damn traffic."
Thirteen exhaled through her teeth, staring through the windshield at the rows of cars in front of them. It was a clear, sunny day, but chilly; a light dusting of snow powdered the ground, left over from the night's frost. Thirteen wrapped her coat more firmly around herself. "I don't think he's screwing with us. I think he's screwing with Chase."
Taub's nose appeared between Foreman and Thirteen's seats. "What are we talking about?" he asked dryly, evidently not too pleased about being demoted to sit in the back. His seat belt whirred as he leaned forward, and he unclipped it impatiently. "When I say we, I actually just mean you guys."
A benevolent smork on her face, Thirteen turned to face him. "We are talking about Chase," she explained, a touch of defensiveness in her voice.
"Gossiping about him, you mean," Taub corrected archly, leaning back with a satisfied expression.
"No, not gossiping! House is screwing with… well, with us. And with Chase. You know what today is, right?"
Taub nodded sourly. "The dumping anniversary," he deadpanned.
"Honestly, I actually thought House would give Chase a break for one day of the year, but apparently not. He's been a mess ever since Cameron left him," Thirteen continued.
"House, or Chase?"
"Chase."
A long, thoughtful pause. Finally: "So?"
"Well, I just think it would be nice if House would be a little more understanding, that's all," Thirteen muttered, realizing that she was getting nowhere with Taub's impassive aridity.
She was right.
"He got a break up! Big deal. Millions of guys are dumped by girls like you every day – no offense, Foreman," he added charitably when Foreman's head swiveled to face him. "Keep your eyes on the road. Anyway, he has to learn to live with it."
Thirteen's eyebrows knitted together and she opened her lips to speak, but Foreman coughed pointedly. "I hate to spoil the party, but we're here." Both Taub and Thirteen's heads jerked up, and Thirteen unbuckled her seatbelt to stand next to Foreman while Taub ducked out of the back door and strode over to join the two.
Chase's house was a small affair, painted a nondescript shade of pale gray with white trim. The exterior appeared to be neat and freshly painted, but the yard was a mess of tangled, overgrown grass, dotted with weeds. Taub exhaled noisily, breaking the pensive silence. "He really is messed up, isn't he," he mused. It wasn't a question.
Without replying, Foreman stepped forward to ring the door bell. The team waited patiently for a few moments and then rang the doorbell again. Thirteen put her hand on Foreman's shoulder. "Maybe he's out," she suggested quietly. "Have you tried calling him?"
Foreman shrugged, keeping his eyes trained on the distorted glass of the door window. "House said that Chase wasn't answering his pages," he reminded her, pressing his finger once more on the door bell button, this time for several seconds before letting his hand fall back to his side.
Taub, standing behind Thirteen, raised his eyebrows expressively. "Yeah, well, I can't blame him for not wanting to talk to House. Maybe if one of us calls him…?"
Unnoticed by the other two, Foreman had been fiddling with the doorknob for the past few minutes. The loud click that emitted from it was startlingly loud in the uncertain silence. Thirteen caught her breath. "You're breaking into his house?" she demanded, taken aback.
Foreman slipped a bent paperclip back into his pocket, dusting off his hands and turning the doorknob experimentally. It turned easily in his grip. "You have a better idea?" He opened the door cautiously. The burglar alarm, blinking red in the dim light, appeared not to have been set; Foreman exhaled gratefully and edged into the house, blinking as he adjusted to the shadowy interior of the kitchen.
The place definitely belonged to a bachelor; although the remains of a woman's touch remained in the subtle tastefulness of the furniture and the elegance of the set-up, it had clearly fallen into disrepair. The closets were flung open, dirty dishes were stacked haphazardly on the counter, crumpled cardboard pizza boxes lay half open on the tiled floor, and many of the picture frames which had presumably once held paintings or photographs looked cracked, as if broken, and contained no artwork.
Puzzled, Thirteen fingered a sheet of stiff, high quality paper that was turned on its back. It lay below one of the larger picture frames; on the down turned side was a picture of Chase and Cameron kissing on their wedding day.
A sinking feeling welled in Thirteen's chest as she made her way towards another desecrated picture frame, glass shards crunching underfoot. Another picture lay on its back below it. She turned it over to see a photograph of Chase wearing a suit and grinning so widely it looked like his face might split in half. He held Cameron in his arms, off the ground as if she was as light as a feather. She, too, was smiling radiantly and had her arms clasped around his neck, clad in a summer dress.
Thirteen swallowed the sudden sadness that threatened to envelop her and turned back to Taub and Foreman. "He's not in the kitchen," she whispered, her voice sounding strangled even to her own ears. "Let's split up. It'll be faster." Thirteen had to stifle a strange feeling. At the moment, she felt as if Chase was their patient, and they were checking his house for substances that might have triggered his disease… and that they were having no luck in finding it.
Picking up another overturned photograph of a happy Cameron and Chase and resting it on the counter, she realized that she had never actually been in Chase and Cameron's house before – and now it was just Chase's.
--
Taub carefully picked his way through the gloom into Chase's bedroom. A double bed lay in the middle of the room, resting against one of the walls, while various windows would have created a light, airy atmosphere if the blinds weren't closed. The reek of alcohol hung heavy in the room; to clear his head, Taub crossed it and drew the blinds, yanking the cord unnecessarily hard. Golden light streamed in, and Taub blinked, stepping backwards despite himself.
Taub turned, shielding his eyes with his hand, and an object on the wall caught his eye. Curious, he stepped forward to examine it, eyebrows furrowing. It was a calendar – the generic one given out by the Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital as an advertising gimmick. Taub had one himself. Chase had penciled in meetings and important dates in a tiny, neat hand; notes like conference w/ lc and dry cleaner get shirt? which would probably make sense to no one but Chase himself.
No such dates, however, were written in on the Tuesdays of each week. Intrigued, Taub leaned closer. Every Tuesday was crossed off with fat, angry X's. Some X's seemed emphatic, whereas others were more timid. Some weren't even X's, but furious scribbles. Taub closed his eyes, feeling almost as if he was intruding on something personal. It's just a calendar, he assured himself.
Footsteps sounded, and Taub turned to face Foreman, who was striding towards him. "Did you find him?" Foreman asked.
Taub shook his head no.
"Then what's that?" Foreman demanded, pointing at the bed. Taub turned apprehensively. As dim as it had been in the bedroom before, he hadn't been able to make out the figure of Chase, draped unconscious on the floor by the bed. A half-empty bottle of beer stood by his head, while three more unopened beers remained patiently in their packaging. Seven or eight or so empty bottles were littered by his hand.
"My God," Taub breathed. He inhaled sharply, crossing to Chase's side instantly. His fingers fumbled for Chase's wrist. He relaxed as he felt a pulse throbbing, but continued to count. "His BP's low," he announced. He pried open Chase's eyelids and, slipping a tiny flashlight from his lab coat pocket, shone it onto Chase's pupils. "Pupils are dilated, too." Biting his lip, he rolled Chase over onto his side.
Thirteen arrived then, pausing in the doorframe. "Jesus," she muttered, not bothering with niceties. "We have to get him to the hospital."
Foreman knelt by Taub's side. "We'd better get him out of here," he agreed, meeting Taub's gaze.
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