6 months later:
The head of the department of diagnostics at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital settled into his desk chair.
Mid morning sunlight was entering the glass walled office, lighting up the stacks of files on the part of the desk that faced outward. On the left side, several well placed objects were still untouched; a small, colored stress ball was among them, as well as a pair of running shoes, discarded on the floor, and an ID badge with a stubbled face glaring out from the corner.
Robert Chase didn't move these objects. He could hardly touch them without remembering. Some good, some bad.
The door had his name on it, but it was not his office. It was House's, and it always would be. It's hard to think about sometimes. Ten years, he spent with House. And then gone.
But he can't hold himself together if he thinks too long about these things.
Park was the first to arrive in the morning, as usual. She waved to him before making herself a cup of coffee. Adams comes in next, and then Taub, and soon they're all just hanging out around the conference table, three smart doctors with nothing to do. It had been a week of doing sudoku, playing video games, and extra clinic hours.
Chase decided it was time he put in an appearance.
"Morning."
He got a collective grunt in response.
"Still nothing?" Taub asked.
"Yep."
"Damn."
"You're free."
"I drove all the way out here for nothing?"
Chase ignored his last protest and turned to Park. "It's Wednesday."
"What? Crap. Hold on." She searched her impressive brain for a moment, and though the coffee had yet to kick in, she found what she was looking for. "The first rubber heel for shoes was patented in January of 1899."
Fun Fact Wednesdays had started even before House was killed, before Chase thought he had left PPTH for good. Somehow they fell back into the routine. He liked that, another constant to rely on. He couldn't possibly fathom how Park seemed to come up with this useless information on the spot, but he didn't question it.
Chase smiled, as he always did on Wednesdays.
The meeting drifted apart after that. Taub went home to his daughters. Park and Adams headed to the clinic, and Chase had a meeting with Foreman to see if he could snag any tough patients from Princeton General or Mercy.
He was unsuccessful.
m m m
Park looked down at the teenager's bare thigh with her dark eyebrows raised.
"How did this happen again?" She asked, slapping on a pair of gloves.
The boy was about fifteen, with a mane of red hair framing his face. He sat on the edge of the examining table in his boxers, having dropped trow to expose thirteen push pins firmly imbedded in his thigh. "I dunno. Just fucking around with some guys I know."
Park flicked one of them with her finger, and the boy flinched. She dug around in a nearby drawer for some forceps. "Well, there's not a whole lot of options. I'll try to be quick. I think a local anesthetic isn't even needed, really."
"You're saying it's gonna hurt?"
"Not too bad. We'll try one and see. You may want to close you eyes."
She picked one a random. It was blue, and shaped in a way that the forceps could easily grip. Without bothering to ask if he was ready, she plucked it out suddenly. It came out easily.
He winced, but didn't say a word.
"No problem." She said with a chipper smile, showing her dimples, as he opened his eyes. A tiny droplet of blood formed in the hole, which she wiped away with a square of gauze. They proceeded with the other twelve in the same way. By the end, he was comfortable enough to actually open his eyes and watch her do it.
She put band aids on the more persistently bleeding marks, but most were fine without. The boy left without so much as a limp. She had to say, House may have hated the clinic, but it was occasionally interesting.
She thought about House as she peeled off her gloves and re washed her hands. She'd known him for a year. As she'd said at his funeral, he'd hired her when no one else would. But if there was one thing Chi Park was, it was adaptable. She'd worked for Andrews, then House, and now Chase. She did her job, and tried to keep emotions out of it. She was there for Chase because he needed a second in command, someone to remind him that he could still be a good doctor without House watching his every move. He needed someone to lean on who wouldn't collapse under their own stress. She could do that, and so she became a pillar.
She looked at her watch. Lunch time. And she had a date, of sorts.
m m m
They eyed the ratty chair, one with disdain, the other with nostalgia.
Park had closed the curtains and procured a metal letter opener from everyone in the building who had one. She'd then carefully labeled each with a piece of tape that had the name of the doctor she'd borrowed it from written in sharpie. Chase had wheeled the old chair into the center of the office, and was staring at it without emotion. It was House's, or had been.
Last week, Foreman had informed him that they were replacing all the furniture so it matched. It seemed trivial in Chase's opinion. As if anyone in the hospital cared if the furniture was the same in each department. But it was Foreman's way of coping, he figured, getting rid of the things that seemed to yell memories at him. Chase understood, but couldn't quite let House's desk chair be thrown into some dump without leaving a personal touch of his own. He'd told Park this; Park had hatched a plan, as was her nature.
"You ready?" She asked, with unrestrained excitement. Throwing knife like objects at upholstery was the most fun you could have with your pants on, she believed. It reminded her of when she was eleven, and her brother was seven, and she used to get him to play a game where he tried to climb that stairs on all fours while she threw random shit at him. It never failed to amuse her, and occasionally she had the urge to do it again, even at an older age. Unfortunately, her brother had gotten slightly more clever as the years passed.
Chase nodded after a long moment.
She had sixteen letter openers lined up on his desk. She passed him the first one in the row.
He aimed carefully, holding the 'blade' between his fingers, before letting it fly, and then sink deep into the center of the chair. An involuntary smile curled the corners of his mouth.
"This was genius." He told Park.
"I know." She said simply, throwing her own. House would've approved of the proper send off of his chair, she was sure.
Before long, there are sixteen letter openers impaled in a desk chair, and Chase is looking at Park's dimpled, self satisfied smile.
Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who's reviewed! You guys are awesome! I'll try to have the next chapter up soon.