Chase found himself sitting inside Cuddy's office, feeling exhausted and almost empty inside. So many eyes were watching him as he picked up the phone in order to call House and share with him the news of his patient's death. He reached for the phone and he noticed how Cuddy herself was looking down on him. Well, not on him but at his sleeve. It was still covered in blood after he'd tried to save Laura, without any luck.
"Doctor Cuddy, can I speak with you for a moment?" One of the policemen asked the dean of medicine as he turned his back on Chase.
"Sure." Cuddy muttered, looking just as pale and grave as everyone else in the room.
Chase watched as the two of them stood up to have a private conversation – a conversation that he couldn't be part of because he was going to tell his boss that the patient was dead. He saw Cuddy looking over her shoulder once or twice, looking at him just as the policeman had whispered something to her, and he almost forgot that the phone was dialling. When he heard House answering him from a place that seemed so far away, Chase had to stop and remember what on earth he was going to say…
"Hello?" House sounded grumpy and irritated already.
Chase noticed that one of the other policemen was watching him closely and so he tried to speak as discretely as possible.
"House… It's me." He couldn't believe how weak his own voice sounded. It didn't sound like him at all.
"Who's me?" House demanded; obviously he didn't recognize his voice either.
"House, it's me!" Chase tried again as he wanted to speak up. This time, he nearly began to panic as he realized that the sound of House's voice was bringing the tears back to his eyes.
"Oh." House finally recognized his voice, it seemed. "Dear god, Wombat, you're really bad at introducing yourself over the phone."
Chase wanted to tell him that this was not the time for mocking him. He could hear someone laughing in the background and he thought that he heard music playing, but he chose to ignore it.
"House, I need you to listen to me, okay? I'm still at the hospital, but something happened. I tried to page you, but you never got back to me…"
"Yeah, I'm not wearing my pager." House admitted openly and it almost sounded like he giggled in the end of the sentence. "I'm tired of being available to everyone, you see."
If Chase knew him well enough, he knew that House was trying to provoke him again and make him lose his temper with him, but obviously that couldn't happen. Not here, not now.
"House, I – I lost the patient." Chase heard himself saying and his voice nearly failed him. The policeman was looking directly at him once again.
House remained silent for a short while and Chase feared that he hadn't heard him, but then he said: "The patient? Do you mean Linda?"
"What? No, her name is Laura. I mean, was…" Chase instantly hated himself for making this mistake and he wished to God that he didn't have to make this phone call. He almost couldn't stand talking about it.
"Laura?" House repeated dully. "Huh, I could have sworn that it was Linda."
Chase wanted to shout at him and tell him to stay focused, but he couldn't afford to lose his self-control at this point. Not in front of everyone.
"House, I really need you to come to the hospital," he said bluntly, "the police are here and they are asking me a bunch of questions. You see, the patient – Laura – she… She killed herself." Chase had to swallow a lump in his throat before he could continue. "She used my scalpel to cut her own throat."
He paused and waited for House's reaction, but his boss didn't seem to have anything to say about this.
"House? Are you there?"
And then he heard a small sigh from House as though he was bored.
"What was wrong with her?" He asked simply. "Was she upset because her name wasn't Linda?"
"What?" Chase was so shocked that he stood up from his seat. "Did you not just hear me? She's dead, House! Are you drunk or something?" And then he noticed the music and the laughter in the background again. He felt like a complete fool for not having figured this out from the beginning. "You're at the bar, aren't you?" He blurted out accusingly. "You went to the bar to get drunk and now you can't even remember the name of the patient!"
Knowing House pretty well, Cuddy overheard the last bit of the conversation and had a pretty good idea of what was going on. She immediately moved to Chase's side and stole the phone out of his hands.
"House, if you don't get your ass over here right now, there won't even be a new case for you to work on in the future!" She hissed angrily before hanging up the phone.
She then turned to take a look at her Australian employee and for a second or two, she wondered how Chase had had the courage to speak up to his own boss like that and even accuse him of being drunk. But then she remembered that House had the ability to frustrate everyone way beyond their breaking point.
CHCHCHCHCHCHCHCHCHCHCHCH
House walked in Cuddy's office around 4am, aware of the fact that they were all expecting him. Truth be told, he had very little idea of what the hell was going on and why he was needed there at this hour. His head was beginning to hurt and he was drunker than he was willing to admit. It was a struggle for him to even walk straight.
"You all better have a really good explanation for this!" House exclaimed as he burst in the door, nearly tripping over his own feet. "Don't you think I have better things to do at home?"
"Actually no, I really don't." Cuddy answered him firmly. "House, sit down."
"I could have had company!" House cried out insistently. "Really great company, if you know what I mean!"
As he sat down in front of Cuddy's desk, though, he took notice of Chase who was sitting on Cuddy's couch, right next to a grave man in a suit that he hadn't seen before. A couple of policemen were standing in the corner, watching the three doctors grimly. He could tell that the Wombat looked pale – and almost shattered for some reason. Had House's joke really offended him? Or was he angry with him because of the drinking?
He sensed that the atmosphere in this room was grave and tense for a reason, but he simply couldn't think straight. He was annoyed that he even had to be here.
"I've seen enough lawyers and policemen in my life to know what this is about." House smirked all of a sudden and looked up at Cuddy who was standing on the other side of the desk, keeping her arms crossed. "This is a lawsuit, isn't it? So what happened? What am I being sued for this time? Oh let me guess, that way it's much more fun…"
"House, don't…" Cuddy tried to make him shut up, but without any luck.
"Are we dealing with sexual harassment of some kind?" House guessed wildly. "Did I grab your ass one time too many?"
Cuddy sighed and looked deeply frustrated. "No. This is about your patient, Laura Hamilton. As you were told over the phone earlier, she has died."
"Oh." House vaguely remembered hearing the name when Chase had been going on and on about something over the phone. But House only remembered the anger in the kid's voice when he had accused him of being drunk again, and it annoyed him that he was always forced into feeling guilty about something. Why couldn't the kid just let the little things go and let him live his life?
"Oh? Is that all you have to say about that?" Cuddy frowned.
"I don't know." House simply shrugged. "It depends what she died of. But since you all insisted on having me here – in the middle of the night – I assume that her death has something to do with me."
The grave man in the suit – who looked a lot like a lawyer, by the way – stood up from the couch and walked towards House's chair.
"Doctor House, were you and your team ever able to diagnose Laura Hamilton's mysterious stomach aches? Were you aware of the fact that Mrs. Hamilton seems to have swallowed a sewing needle before admitting herself in this hospital?"
"What?" House's head was beginning to throb with pain and he couldn't think of anything clever to say. "She swallowed a sewing needle? You've got to be kidding me!"
The man in the suit looked at him seriously – he most certainly wasn't kidding. "Doctor House, your patient committed suicide a few hours ago by cutting her own throat, using a scalpel that she had stolen out of doctor Chase's pocket…"
"She – she didn't steal it," Chase tried to speak up, but his voice continued to be weak, "the scalpel was in the pocket of my coat, but I left the coat in her room because I knew I would be back in a short while. I mean… she must have seen it there. Or maybe it fell out of the pocket or something…"
"Oh, so you're saying that you left the scalpel behind as a recommendation for Mrs. Hamilton to use it?" One of the policemen interfered harshly.
House noted the angst in Chase's eyes when these words were spoken and he watched as the kid stood up, infuriated and eager to defend himself. "I didn't encourage her to do anything!" He shouted heatedly. "I didn't know that she was going to…"
He obviously couldn't say the words out loud, so the room grew silent again.
The man in the suit turned to look at House once more. "Doctor House," he spoke slowly, "one might wonder how you and your teamed failed to find the sewing needle in the woman's system. Didn't you order an MRI of her…"
But House wasn't paying attention to him; instead he was going through the story in his head. He needed an extra minute to think it all over, but the minute he had, he felt outraged. Swallowing a sewing needle to screw up your own stomach? Of course this woman had been suicidal! She had basically been crying out for help and attention all along.
"How the hell could you be so stupid?!" House yelled at the top of his lungs and everyone else turned silent. "This is the most irresponsible thing you have ever done!"
He was looking directly at Chase who seemed to have frozen on the spot. He noted the bloody sleeve, the messy blond hair and the red eyes and he could tell that the kid had been on the verge of desperation. However, House didn't take this as indication for him to back off, but rather, he took this as a sign of Chase's guilty conscience and he knew that it was true: Chase was the one to blame for this and he was only right to feel tormented with guilt. He should have stayed with her, he should have paid more attention – he should have done something to stop her. Anything.
"How could you leave her alone with your scalpel?" House continued to shout. "Didn't it occur to you at all that this might be a bad idea? Did you really have to push her over the edge like that?"
House knew that this was the alcohol talking and that he didn't need to get this angry, but he couldn't help himself. Chase had made him feel guilty about so many things in the past. Now it was House's turn to point fingers and feel superior. This time, he wasn't the one who had screwed up royally.
"Are you saying that this is my fault?" Chase blurted out and his eyes grew even wider. "How was I supposed to know that she wanted to kill herself? If I had known, I would never have…"
"But you did!" House caught him off mercilessly. "You left her alone with a scalpel and now she's dead! How is that not being irresponsible? I never should have put you back on this case – I knew you wouldn't be able to focus on anyone else but yourself!"
House was so furious that he just wanted to keep on yelling and yelling, but for some reason, he stopped himself after his last remark. He got a feeling that he had crossed some invisible line all of a sudden. That he had said something that he wasn't supposed to say out loud.
"Doctor Chase, is this true? You were taken off the case to begin with?" One of the policemen took a step towards him and House could basically see the Wombat grow smaller. "What did you do? And why were you put back on the case if you weren't up for the task?"
Chase's heart began to pound even harder and he thought that he was going to be sick. What were these people suggesting? That he was the reason this woman had died? No, it couldn't be true! They got it all wrong…
"He was taken off the case because he couldn't keep focus," House repeated and chuckled scornfully, "he was occupied with everything else but the patient. And I was wrong to give him a second chance."
House knew that this wasn't true, but for some reason, it didn't matter to him. He was sick and tired of being nice and patient and pay attention to all the kid's many problems. He had been out drinking because he wanted for forget about all the problems that Chase had brought into his life – telling Wilson about their relationship was still the worst betrayal of all – and his night had been ruined when he was called and ordered back to the hospital. Once again because Chase had screwed up and failed to complete a simple task.
"House, you know that's not true!" Chase exclaimed anxiously when all eyes were on him. "I did keep focus. I even wrote down notes about her condition and I took my time to ask her about the pain in her stomach. I did my job just like Foreman or Cameron would have done it!"
Cuddy watched her Australian employee sympathetically now. She knew that he wasn't responsible for Laura Hamilton's death and she knew that House knew it, too. She felt bad for him, but she couldn't speak about this case. She barely knew anything about it.
The man in the suit decided to go back to quizzing House once again, and he demanded to know how the team could have missed the sewing needle in the poor woman's stomach, but he was still ignored. House had said everything he wanted to say for now – he refused to utter another word. He was using all his strength to convince the people in this room that he was sober enough to have this conversation when really, he could barely even remember how he got from the bar to the hospital.
"I'm going home," House heard himself mutter grumpily as he reached for his cane, "if anyone else dies on Chase's watch tonight, leave me out of it!"
As he was walking towards the door, House looked over at his Wombat who was now standing all alone in this room amongst the lawyers and the policemen. He knew that he would probably never forgive himself for leaving the kid behind like this, but he couldn't think about forgiveness now. At this moment, he only cared about surviving this crappy night and his own killer head ache.
CHCHCHCHCHCHCHCHCHCH
The following morning, Foreman and Cameron were rather surprised to find the diagnostics room empty. They had expected Chase to be there to give them an update on the patient – or at least he should have left a detailed note in the patient's files.
"Should we call House and tell him that Chase didn't do his job?" Foreman joked as he was making himself a cup of coffee. "I bet he checked out of the hospital as soon as the rest of us went home. He obviously didn't care enough to stay."
Cameron opened her laptop and shook her head at him. "You're not telling House anything until we know where he is and why he left."
"Hey, I'm not saying that I can't understand his reasons for bailing," Foreman shrugged, "I mean, I would have hated it if I had been asked to stay as well."
"You were asked to stay to begin with, and so was I." Cameron reminded him with a frown. "But then Chase was given the assignment of staying instead, because we complained about it so much."
Foreman snorted. "True, but giving Chase the assignment of staying was your idea, Cameron. Don't pretend to feel sorry for him when it's your fault that he switched places with us."
Thirty minutes went by and there was still no sign of either House or Chase.
"That's it, I'm calling him." Foreman sighed impatiently and got up from his seat. "This is a complete waste of time…"
"No wait," Cameron held up her hand in order to stop him, "I think doctor Cuddy's coming this way."
And indeed, Cuddy was walking down the hall and she entered the diagnostics room before Foreman got a chance to pick up the phone.
"Doctor Foreman, doctor Cameron," Cuddy nodded as to give them a rather formal greeting, "I am here to inform the two of you about something that happened to your patient last night."
"Our patient?" Cameron repeated sceptically. "Do you mean Laura Hamilton?"
"Is she all right?" Foreman immediately asked and sounded concerned.
Cuddy sighed and shook her head. She had been making phone calls all morning and she hated having to give people these kinds of messages.
"I'm afraid that she has died." She said as she grabbed one of the patient's files that were still lying on the glass table. "I'm sorry that you didn't receive a message from me earlier, but it's been extremely hectic…"
"She died?" Cameron caught her off. "Oh my god, how did that happen? I thought her condition was under control!"
Foreman fought an inner battle, trying to decide if he should keep his mouth shut or not, but in the end, it was impossible. "Chase should have stayed at the hospital over night!" He blurted out. "House had ordered him to look after the patient, but I'm assuming that he just took off when no one was watching him…"
"No!" Cuddy raised her voice determinedly and threw the file back down on the table. "Doctor Chase did stay with the patient right until the time of death. In fact, there was nothing he could have done to save her if you ask me. Laura Hamilton committed suicide in her room by cutting her own throat and there is no way that doctor Chase could have predicted that."
Cameron's eyes grew big and she raised a hand to cover her own mouth. Foreman seemed just as shocked to hear this, although he was not yet speechless.
"How the hell could she commit suicide in her room?" He demanded as though it was the most outrageous thing he had ever heard. "She didn't have access to any kind of medicine, she didn't have any pointy or sharp objects on her…"
"You're right, she didn't." Cuddy agreed with him. "But she managed to find doctor Chase's scalpel in the pocket of his white coat. He had left the coat behind in her room when he went to get a cup of coffee. We still don't know why this happened, but apparently, Mrs. Hamilton was suicidal from the moment she was admitted here. She swallowed a sewing needle to injure herself – that was why she was complaining about the severe stomach aches."
"Oh my god…" Foreman almost couldn't believe what he was hearing. "A sewing needle? But we asked her about the stomach aches a hundred times! How could we have missed that?"
"I don't know." Cuddy sighed. "That is what we'll spend the next couple of days trying to figure out."
"I don't get it," Cameron shook her head and frowned again, "she didn't seem suicidal to me! I've left my coat and my scalpels behind in a patient's room a number of times before."
"We all have." Foreman added solemnly. "And scissors, and razor blades, and…"
"Doctor Chase was just unfortunate, I think." Cuddy interrupted him. "However, there will be consequences until we figure out how the hell this could happen."
"Consequences? What do you mean by that?" Cameron quizzed her. "You're not going to punish us for something we couldn't possibly know about, are you?"
"Not you," Cuddy shook her head, "but doctor Chase will be suspended from working on House's cases for a week. Until the hearing is over."
"What hearing? This doesn't seem fair!" Foreman objected. "If that woman wanted to kill herself, none of us could have done anything to stop her and you know it."
"Yes, I do know it," Cuddy admitted, "but I don't get to decide Chase's fate from now on. Hopefully, the hearing will go well and they will all realise that her death wasn't his or House's fault, but until then, there is nothing I can do to protect them."
"Wait…" Cameron said. "House is in trouble, too? Why?"
Cuddy shrugged, as though she didn't know what to tell them. "All I know is that people wonder why nobody found that sewing needle in her stomach. At the hearing, they are probably going to try and turn this into a case of medical negligence."
CHCHCHCHCHCHCHCHCHCH
House woke up around noon, bathed in his own sweat and with a sudden urge to vomit. He hurried from the bedroom to the toilet, but when he was leaning over the bathroom sink, nothing came up.
"My head…" He muttered to himself. "I feel like I'm dying."
After breathing in and out a couple of times, he found the bottle of aspirins and limped into the kitchen. Whilst making himself a cup of coffee, he looked around and thought to himself how quiet the apartment seemed.
Chase wasn't home, he realized slowly. Where the hell did he go? He hadn't left any messages, it seemed.
"I bet he doesn't want me to find him." House thought as he swallowed the first pill. "But I have to, don't I?"
He decided to wait around for a while before doing anything drastic. After a cup of coffee and a few aspirins, he felt better and even decided that he wanted to eat something. Chase would usually make him breakfast, but now it appeared that he was on his own. Damn.
He ended up burning both his eggs and his bacon, but he ate it in front of the TV anyway. He needed it if he wanted to survive this day. It wasn't only the hangover that concerned him. He remembered saying a lot of things to the kid last night that he already regretted. He remembered how angry he had felt, even though this wasn't even about him. It was about the death of a woman. A very stupid woman, he thought cynically.
He knew that he had hurt Chase. At the time, it had felt like a reasonable thing to do. Hell, he had even wanted to hurt him. But now, he knew that he couldn't have made a worse mistake than this. The kid had had so many issues and doubts about himself and this would only make things worse. House had been meaning to show his Wombat that he could trust him, but now he wondered – was he even worth trusting?
"I'm a much bigger screw-up than he is." House told himself. He was beginning to lose hope.
A very quiet hour went by and he was beginning to feel scared. Where was he? Did he even come home to sleep? He knew that he couldn't have stayed at the hospital after being suspended. He must have gone somewhere…
Who did the kid have in this city, besides House? No one, House thought. He doesn't have anywhere to go or anyone to go to.
He tried to call his cell phone a few times. There was no answer, of course. When he was beginning to feel desperate, he called both Wilson and eventually Cuddy, too. Neither of them had heard anything from him and they both insisted that he hadn't spent the night at their place. He almost considered calling Cameron or Foreman, too, but the idea only seemed ridiculous to him. Since when had the ducklings ever helped each other out with anything?
House went outside to see if the car was still there or not. It was.
"Damn it," he thought, "I'm going to drive around in circles in this damn city until I find him!"
And that was exactly what he did. He had been driving around aimlessly for an hour or two before he finally knew where to go. He wouldn't find the kid in any sort of bar, or pub, or tavern. He hadn't gone out drinking.
The Catholic church. He felt stupid for not realizing it earlier. Oh, this was so typical of the Wombat. Dramatic as always. Of course he had chosen to bring God into this mess!
He parked outside the church and popped a couple of Vicodin before going in. It was a very bright day. The sun was shining…
"You idiot!" House cried out loud when he spotted Chase on the front row, near the altar. "You stupid idiot!"
Chase looked over his shoulder and watched quietly whilst House approached him. He was looking even more horrible than he'd done last night. His hair was still a mess and his sleeve was still covered in dark blood, but he was paler now and there were dark semi-circles underneath his eyes. He hadn't slept at all, House realised.
"You idiot," he said again as he reached the kid's chair, "this is where you've been hiding all morning? And you did not think to call me and let me know where you were?"
"House," Chase whispered hoarsely, "this is not a very good time…"
"Oh don't give me that! Do you know how long I've been looking for you?" House almost wanted to whack him with his cane. "Do you know how worried I was?"
Chase looked up to meet his gaze, but tiredness was the only emotion he could express at this point. "Sorry." He said without even trying to sound like he meant it.
"Sorry? You're saying sorry now?" House grunted. "Yeah well, I know you don't mean it so you might as well quit it. What the hell are you sitting around here for? We have chairs at home too, you know!"
"I'm waiting for the priest," Chase said slowly, "he told me he'd be ready for my confession in a little while."
"For crying out loud…" House sighed. "Let me guess – you're gonna tell him that you're a murderer and then ask for God's forgiveness? Chase, you didn't kill anyone… She did that to herself."
House sat down on the chair next to him. Chase didn't look convinced at all. Instead, he looked slightly amused.
"That's not what you were telling me last night…" He snorted.
"Will you forget about last night!" House told him firmly. "I was drunk and you know it. I said a lot of things that I didn't mean."
Chase was quiet for a moment, but then he leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. "Wilson says that you say things you don't mean all the time." He whispered.
House disliked the idea of Wilson having that conversation with his Wombat, but it didn't matter anymore. "He was right." He admitted tiredly. "Is that what you want to hear? I say stupid things that I don't mean all the time…"
"But it wasn't stupid," Chase objected, "you were right. I should have done something to save her…"
"No, listen to me. There was nothing you could do. She killed herself, Robert, and that wasn't your fault!"
Chase shook his head. Not because he wanted to be difficult, but because he was too tired to listen. "I'm not going to change my mind about this. I'm sorry, House, but I will have to talk to the priest."
"No, you won't! I don't want you to tell a stranger that you murdered someone when you didn't!" House exclaimed. "Come on, let's go home instead and talk this out."
"I can't." Chase looked away from him. "She died because I wasn't paying attention. There's nothing else to say about that."
"Oh hell, there is!" House practically shouted and his voice echoed inside the church. "Look, you need to come with me, Robbie. You haven't slept and you haven't had anything to eat, I'm sure. Just let me take you home and we can talk about this as much as you want."
"No." Chase insisted. "I can't."
Finally, House lost his patience with him. "Last chance, Wombat. Will you go out to the car with me or do I have to drag you?" When Chase refused to answer him, House added: "Fine. I'll drag you out, then."
And then House used all his strength to pull the kid up from the seat and push him all the way down the isle, towards the exit.
"No, don't!" Chase tried to stop him. "Let go of me, House, the priest will be here any minute…"
But for some reason, House had a feeling that the kid wasn't using all his strength to resist. He managed to drag him all the way out of the church and into the car. When they were both seated and ready to go, though, the tears began to roll down Chase's pale cheeks and slowly, he gave in and sobbed loudly.
"Hey," House whispered as soothingly as he could, "don't do that. Please, Robbie, don't cry."
But it couldn't be helped. Chase was crying and he didn't know how to stop.
"I'm sorry, Greg," he choked, "I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to save her…"
"It's okay," House unfastened his seat belt and pulled Chase into his embrace, "it wasn't your fault, kiddo. You did everything you could."
House hugged him tightly and he allowed him to cry for as long as he needed to. He could feel the kid shivering and it concerned him a great deal that he was in this state already.
"I didn't know that she was going to kill herself…" Chase sobbed against House's shoulder and he felt so tired that he thought he might pass out.
"I know," House told him again and again, "it wasn't your fault, Robbie. It wasn't your fault. Listen… I love you. And I'm sorry for saying all those awful things to you. I'm not gonna let them blame this on you. Let me take you home, okay?" House touched his teary cheek with his hand and he made him raise his chin so that he could lean in and kiss him. He kissed him as slowly and tenderly as he could. "Let me take you home, and I promise you that we will work it all out together. Everything is going to be all right."