Chase's mind was whirling with mixed images. He was checking an x-ray, then talking to a sick nun, then being scolded by a priest. His mother was watching while he went running straight into the ocean for a swim. He could almost feel the heat of the sun beating down on his bare back and the sticky residue of the saltwater. He was researching causes for neck pain. Hands were firmly around his neck choking him. There was a beautiful white light and a warmth that completely enveloped him. The breath pouring into him tasted of cigarettes. He saw the black decaying lungs of a smoker. He gave his father what he did not realize was one last hug.

As his mind became clearer, every ache and pain intensified. Still, Chase realized that his throat was not hurting as much as it had been. He was frustrated that he had no concept of how much time he had spent in that hospital bed. His back told him it had been too long. He knew Cameron had been there, but that could just as easily have been six hours or six days in the past. His hair felt greasy, his jaw was covered in stubble, and his mouth tasted like a billion bacteria were thriving there. That alone was enough to force him to come out of his slumber.

He shook the cobwebs from his brain and managed to get himself out of bed. He slipped off the pulse oximeter and removed the IV port which had been relocated from one hand to the other. A huge bruise was left where it had been previously. As soon as he had removed the port he had realized that he should have let it stay in place. Still, it was easier to move about if he did not have to drag an IV or monitor every step. He was brushing his teeth when a nurse walked into his room and began calling to him. He did not recognize her voice and wondered who she was and if she was telling all the other gossipy nurses why he was a patient.

He opened the bathroom door and she breathed a visible sigh of relief. "You're not supposed to be out of bed by yourself. House will have my head on a platter if you hurt yourself." She was probably only a few years older than him and had curly red hair, brown eyes, and a few freckles on her nose. He disliked her for no other reason than she was there.

I'm not dizzy, he thought, remembering Cameron's concern over his concussion. Chase wondered if she meant hurt himself by doing something like tripping over electrical chords or hurt himself by doing something like slitting his wrists. He shrugged and held up the toothbrush for her to see, feeling a bit like an idiot. He refrained from wearing a foolish smile to complete the picture. He turned back to the sink and hastily finished his chore. There was no razor so it would not have been possible to act on the wrist slitting theory anyway. He looked past the stubble on his chin to see the still glaring bruises around his neck.

"How's your throat?" she asked.

Chase turned around to face her again to tell her somehow that he could not answer her. He rubbed his throat, hoping she would get the message that it was hurting.

"Exactly what I wanted to know," House echoed, as he came into the room and shut the door behind him. "You can leave now," he told the nurse who scurried out of the room like a scolded cat.

Chase looked to the floor and put his hand down. At that moment he was grateful that someone had been dressing him in scrubs instead of the normal patient gowns. Where are my clothes? he thought.

House grimaced. Ten seconds had passed and Chase had not answered him. This was a bad sign. Fifteen seconds had passed and he had not even made eye contact. He was staring at the floor.

"Didn't you appreciate your vacation?" House asked.

Chase looked up then.

"You've been asleep for the better part of five days. I figured you could use the rest and your throat could use the time to heal itself."

Chase blinked. Five days? He had been hospitalized for five days? A sense of panic began to bubble somewhere deep inside of him.

"Say something!" House demanded.

He swallowed the lump at the back of his throat. He opened his mouth but could not quite think of how to form any words. Maybe it was because he could not think of any words to say.

House inhaled deeply. He approached Chase in the tiny bathroom.

Chase held out his right arm, palm forward, warning House to not come any closer. He shook his head.

"I need to see your throat," House told him, ignoring the body language.

Chase continued to shake his head and backed further away from House. He had no where left to go when he reached the inner wall of the small room.

House paid no attention to personal boundary issues. He reached out and Chase slid down wall, then bolted underneath House's arm to get away from him. House spun around and used his cane to push the door to the bathroom shut before Chase could make his escape, then grabbed the patient's shirt to stop him. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said without warmth. He forced Chase to turn around to face him. "I need to see your throat."

Chase had a wild panic in his eyes as he shoved House away from him.

House stumbled backward and Chase used his freedom to flee from the bathroom. He made it as far as the door to his room before he stopped cold in his tracks. There was one certainty: he was safer in this room with House than he would be out there. He noticed a hospital security officer in the familiar uniform of black pants and a khaki shirt standing by near the door. The man curiously looked his way so Chase quickly shut the door, wondering why a security guard was standing duty there.

House came out of the bathroom to find Chase standing at the entrance to his room, frozen to the spot. House had a smile on his face. He had just learned a very important piece of the puzzle: Chase would, in fact, still defend himself and run when there was not a gun to his head or a hostage's life at stake. The young man was not completely broken by this experience.

Then there was his complete reluctance to face the outside world. He was far from unscathed.

House approached Chase more cautiously. He reached out, placing one hand on his shoulder, "Nice move. Your pediatrician must have loved you." He could easily picture a child ducking under a doctor's arm to get away from nasty shots. For that matter, he could imagine himself ducking under Cuddy's arm to get out of clinic duty if only he were able to make a run for the exit.

"I shouldn't have cornered you like that," House said. It was not exactly an apology. Cornering Chase had served its diagnostic purpose. "Have I hurt you so far?" he asked.

Chase felt the hand on his shoulder and closed his eyes, wanting to shrug it off. He shook his head. He wanted to tell--to ask House to not touch his shoulders, but there were no words.

"Come sit down," House directed, gently pushing him back to the bed. "I need to check your throat."

Chase tilted his head upward while House stood over him. It was easy to see that bruises and petechiae still covered his neck. He noted that there were some small purple spots under Chase's eyes as well. They were the result of capillaries bursting during the strangulation. His eyes looked slightly bloodshot, though far clearer than they had bad been upon initial examination. He noticed the scratch marks on his jaw and neck that were most likely from Chase's own fingernails as he tried to fight against the hands wrapped around his throat.

Knowing that it could take less than a minute for a strangulation victim to lose consciousness and never recover, House pondered how close to death the young man had come. He took a lighted scope in his hand, but Chase pushed his hand and the instrument away.

"You have two options: start talking or have more tests."

Chase reached for the legal pad and pen that Cameron had given him. Under his message of thanks to her, he wrote, "I need time, not tests."

"You could have laryngeal nerve damage or edema. You could have fractured cricoid or thyroid cartilage."

"You did a soft tissue x-ray and laryngoscopy."

"So we know you have no mucosal lacerations. There's no detachment. Fractures can take days to appear in x-rays."

"If it's a fracture, it needs time."

"If it's nerve damage you may need surgery."

"Or it can reinnervate with time. It can be vocal fold hematoma which takes TIME."

"Or it's not a physical problem at all and you don't want me to know that it's mental."

Chase looked away, thoroughly hating House at that moment.

"Not speaking is not going to prevent you from having to confront what happened," House told him.

He's wrong. I'm not crazy, Chase thought bitterly while fearing that House was right. How could he explain that he could not make the words in his mind reach his throat? He imagined a little wall inside his neck that kept his thoughts from being able to find their way to his larynx.

Chase dared to open his mouth, and it felt as if his throat was flaming. The pain was agonizing, making his eyes water. He shook his head and reached for his pen. "It hurts," was all he wrote.

"Fine," House gave up on doing another exam. He did not doubt for a moment that Chase was telling the truth about the pain. It was likely that he did have cartilage fractures and edema that would take time to heal. The issue remained that Chase was not attempting to vocalize anything. "I'm going to try systemic steroids for the possible edema." He threatened unproven treatment to try to provoke a reaction.

There was none.

"I'm adding H2 blockers for reflux. That should help with pain management." When Chase did not respond to that he added, "Three more days and I'm doing an endoscopy."

Chase nodded, accepting those terms. It was a fair amount of time to allow edemas or hematomas to heal. He had three days to learn to speak again or have to endure more painful procedures.

"Go take the shower I know you're itching for. Officer Madison of the PPD will be here in a few hours to take your statement."

Chase looked up with horror. If he made a statement to the police, those men would come back for him.

"We'll be back soon. Try to remember everything you can so they can nail those bastards to the wall."

I don't want to remember any of it, Chase thought as he watched House walk away. They can't make me talk about it, write about it, whatever. He threw the legal pad across the room, its pages fluttering before it fell to the tile with a smack. Not fully satisfied with that, he also threw the pen which bounced off the wall and landed under the bed. He wanted to take a shower, so he went back to the bathroom, then he realized he had no clean clothes. He slammed the bathroom door shut before sinking to the floor, drawing his knees to his chest and shedding quiet angry tears.

AN: So it only took about 20 hours of research to write this chapter! Whew! I'm tired. If it's of any comfort to the wonderful readers, it's as medically accurate as I could make it without paying for articles from medical journals! Thanks to everyone who has taken time or will take time to review. I love ya for it!