Hey guys! I'm sorry this took so long. We lost our internet for a while, but updates should start happening again soon! As always, I love getting reviews. This chapter is kind of short, but I hope you like it anyway!!
House checked with the nurse and found out that Chase had been given enough medicine to let him sleep peacefully through the night. House took a shower in the locker room, changed and headed back to Chase's bedside. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the empty space where Chase's legs should be. It wasn't fair, he had his whole life ahead of him and now it was ruined. It was ruined because of him. Any way you looked at it, it was his fault.
The next morning, House was woken by the sound of Chase's voice. "Greg?" he asked, quietly, clearly still tired. House snapped out of his doze immediately and moved so he was in front of Chase.
"I'm here." he said. Chase sighed.
"My legs are gone." he said, his voice cracking. House grabbed his hand.
"I know. I'm so, so sorry." House said.
"They still feel like they hurt." he said.
"It's called phantom pain." House explained, knowing that Chase already knew that. Chase nodded, his angry tirade from the day before seeming to have vanished.
"Tell me exactly what happened." He finally said. House sighed deeply, he didn't particularly want to relive the experience, but he knew that Chase needed to know and hear this. Chase watched House as his eyes got a faraway look and he began to speak.
"The semi driver was drunk and fell asleep at the wheel. The truck went sideways and came at us. You tried to break, but it was too late, there was nothing you could do. You swerved and the drivers side hit the truck. The engine folded into the car and pinned you, you were unconscious in seconds. I was a little banged up, but I was fine. In seconds, someone was at the window telling me they had called 911.
"It took them almost three hours to get you out. Your legs...Robert, I've never seen anything like it before in my life. They told me you wouldn't make it, they told me nothing could be done. They got us both to a local hospital and they told me to say my goodbyes. I told them no and demanded to have you transferred here. I got on the phone with Cuddy and she authorized it. We had you airlifted here. It was the longest flight ever, we almost lost you several times." House paused, collecting himself.
"When they got you here, Matthews said he might be able to save you if he amputated both legs. You were losing so much blood and there wouldn't have been anyway to save the legs, even if there wasn't a choice between your legs and you. Matthews told us that there wasn't a good chance you would make it."
There was a very long pause and both were quiet. "It was really that bad?" Chase asked, after a long moment. House finally looked up at him and Chase had never seen more pain in his eyes.
"It was worse." House said. Chase turned away, trying to keep his breathing even so as not to spike the monitors. They were both quiet for a long time as Chase let the information sink in.
"I don't know what you want me to say, Greg. You did to me exactly what Stacy did to you. How can you expect or even think that I could forgive you for this? What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to live? I...I..." he cut off, turned away as heat flooded his cheeks. "Please, go away." He finally said.
"Robert, please, just talk to me. I know how you're feeling-" But that did it, Chase snapped then.
"That's my point! If I could leave, I would, but I can't. So I need you to get out and I need you to get out now." Chase paused. "Please." he said. House nodded and got up. As he reached the door, he turned back to look at Chase, who was now facing the window, and then turned and left.
He headed back towards his own office. He had been planning on going to Wilson's, but when he got there, he noticed that Wilson was having a consult with a patient...who had only one arm. He couldn't quite manage to barge in there, so he went to his own office. He was relieved to find it empty and he sank down into his comfortable desk chair.
He moved to start up the computer, when he glanced at the phone and impulsively grabbed for it. He dialed the number that he would never admit that he still had memorized and only waited three rings to hear that voice.
"Hello?" Came the voice of Stacy Warner.
"Stacy. It's Greg." he said. There was a pause and he knew he needed to explain why he was calling out of the blue. "Look, I didn't know who else to call..." he trailed off.
"It's okay. Both James and Lisa have already called me. I've been waiting to hear from you." she said. A flash of anger burst through him.
"I shouldn't have called." he said.
"No, I didn't mean it like that." she amended. "I think I'm probably the best person for you to talk to right now."
"How's Mark?" House asked. Stacy smiled to herself, same old Greg. Always trying to divert the attention away from himself.
"Mark's fine. How's Chase?" she asked, hesitantly. The last she had heard, he was holding his own, but he still wasn't awake. She assumed that if he was calling, he had woken up.
"He's awake...and furious." House confessed. Stacy wasn't too shocked. She knew what had happened, she knew that there hadn't been a choice, but she also knew firsthand how hard it was to make that decision. She also knew that the Chase would feel betrayed and she would need to blame someone.
"Have you explained to him that there wasn't a choice?" she asked, knowing it was a dumb question.
"I've tried to. He's too angry to listen. He thinks it's the same thing as what happened to me." he deliberately worded it like this. For the first time since the infarction, he wasn't angry about what Stacy did. But it still wasn't the same thing. He could have made it, Chase wouldn't have.
"It's not the same thing." she paused. "What I did was wrong. I went against explicit wishes and did what I thought was right." There was silence on both ends of the phone.
"He doesn't see it that way." House finally said.
"Why don't you show him?" Stacy finally said. "Show him the surgeon's report, show him the ER report. Show him the pictures they took. Maybe if he sees it, he'll understand."
House thought about that for a moment. He thought about what Chase's legs had looked like as they tried to extract him from the crushed vehicle. The engine had been pushed into the car, into where his legs were. His legs had pieces missing, there was metal through them and they had been burned beyond any recognition. House had seen a lot of graphic things over the years, but this had actually sickened him, to the point where he had to look away. He'd never had to look away before.
He wasn't the only one affected by the sight. One of the paramedics actually had to leave so he could vomit. It was lucky that he was unconscious because the pain of getting him out of that mess would have been beyond any pain imaginable. Most of the skin of his legs was left burned inside the car, it just pulled away as they tried to get him out. He didn't want Chase to see that, because of course pictures had been taken for reports.
However, maybe he could show him the emergency report and the surgeon's report. "I'll think about it." He finally said to Stacy. "Thanks." he said.
"Go, be with him." she encouraged. They said their goodbyes and hung up. When he turned his chair around (he had been facing the window) he saw Wilson standing there.
"What did she say?" Wilson asked.
"She said to show him the reports." House replied. Wilson raised his eyebrows.
"I would wait until he was at least stable. Seeing those is going to be a big shock and his system might not be able to handle it." House glared at him.
"What else am I supposed to do?" he asked, frustrated. "He won't listen to me, he won't talk to me. He thinks there was a choice. He thinks that I did to him what Stacy did to me."
"Why don't you let me talk to him first, before you bring out the reports. Or Cuddy, she'd be willing to talk to him."
"I don't know what to do." House said after a long pause. "I don't know what the right thing to do is." It was the first time in his entire life that House had ever said those words.