The service elevator was faster than the public one, so House reached Palliative first. He didn't knock, but he did open the door slowly and peeked inside before entering. Chase was sitting in a chair next to his brother reading from a book in a whisper. Apparently he was engrossed too, because he didn't look up when House came in. When he got close enough, House realized Chase wasn't even speaking English.

"That's not Czech," House said, guessing that would be the most likely language Chase would know because of his father.

"Damn, you startled me," Chase gasped. He looked a bit guilty at being caught, since House had ordered him home. "No, it's not. How'd you know that? You speak it?"

"Nope," House shook his head. "I've got Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic. You?"

"Japanese," Chase started with the common language. "Czech-Slovak, Russian, passable Hungarian, and Latin."

The Slavic languages all came from Rowan, probably. Latin was obviously from seminary. And House assumed Japanese might be taught in Australia, since the two countries were so close, like Spanish (Mexico) and French (Canada) in the USA.

"But none of those were coming out of your mouth," House pointed out. He glanced at the door and bounced his cane against the floor. What was keeping Jakub? "So what was that?"

"How do you know?" Chase was blushing a bit. "You don't speak any of the Czech, Russian, or Hungarian."

"But I know what they sound like," House argued. This was entirely inappropriate, given what was about to happen, and even House realized that. But what about a language could make Chase blush? Suddenly it dawned on him. "Cryptophasia?"

Chase looked startled again. "Damn, House, is there any obscure reference you haven't memorized?" he griped.

Twins sometimes created a made-up language between the two of them, usually around the same time they were first learning to speak a real language. People who feel the need to assign names to such things refer to it as cryptophasia. Since the Chase twins grew up in a multi-lingual household from the beginning, their language was artful.

"Aren't twins supposed to grow out of that phase when they're, like, two?" House asked. And Chase hadn't had anyone to practice with in nearly a decade. Chase didn't rise to the bait, though. He was too busy glaring beyond House toward the door. And from the way Chase's hand was trembling, House knew why.

"Richard and Robert spoke in that gibberish more often than English," Jakub said fondly. "It drove our mother crazy. I remember she wanted Dad to send you to a speech therapist to make you stop, but he loved listening to you."

"He used to record us," Chase agreed warily. "Try to decode what we were saying. I don't think he ever quite got it though."

This was not a situation that could be diffused by small talk. The brothers just stared at each other. Suddenly, this didn't seem like an interesting spectacle anymore and House was wishing he was somewhere else.

"Robert," Jakub finally spoke.

"Don't," Chase interjected. He ran to Jakub, and for a moment House thought he was going to fall to his knees in front of him, but Chase just stood there, the epitomy of desperation and helplessness. "Please, Jakub? Don't do this to us. He's your brother too."

"Robbie, you're a doctor," Jakub said wearily. He'd said all this before, but he had to try again now. "What would you say if you had a patient in Ricky's condition? What would you want for yourself? You have a living will, don't you? What does it say to do if you're ever in Ricky's place?"

"It says as long as Ricky's still alive, I want to be too," Chase said stubbornly.

The implication being that if Ricky was not alive…what? Jakub was thinking it too, House could tell, and for a moment he wondered if it would be enough to dissuade him. But he could see the moment when Jakub sealed his resolve and it was all he could do not to smack the bastard's face to the back of his head.

"Robbie," Jakub sighed and shook his head. He even reached out for him, wanting to offer some comfort, but Chase pushed past him.

"No!"

Chase ran for the door, probably to call his lawyer or maybe even to ask Cuddy to intervene. Maybe he didn't know what he was going to do. But the crash team on call was already waiting in the hall. House found it ironic that the doctors and nurses called in to save a patient when they coded were also frequently the ones called in to pull the plug. He doubted Chase would appreciate the observation, though, and for once that actually mattered. Adding insult to injury, two security guards were already with them.

"Don't do this," Chase begged, thought it wasn't clear who he was asking. Dignity was no longer a concern, so he was probably asking anyone who'd listen. "Please?" When it was clear that the doctor and nurses were steadfastly ignoring him – House noticed with disdain that one of them was already tearing up – Chase turned back to his brother. "Tell them to stop! Damn you, Jakub, make them stop! If you're really my brother, if you've ever cared about either of us at all, you won't do this. Jakub, please, don't do this!"

"I do care about you, Robbie," Jakub said. He was pretty close to begging himself now. He held Chase's face in his hands, and Chase was so distraught he actually let him. "I love you. And I loved Ricky. But he's gone, Robert. He's been gone for a long time, and I can't keep watching you fade away with him!"

"I hate you!" Chase screamed, and shoved Jakub away from him. "Why couldn't she have killed you?" Up till now, Jakub seemed pretty unshakable, but damn if he didn't flinch at that.

"Mr. Chase?" The doctor asked uncertainly for instructions. What was his name again? Failey? Fallero? Oh well, it didn't really matter. From this day forward he would be known in Diagnostics as 'the guy who killed Chase's brother.' And going by the look on his face, he knew it too.

"Quickly, please," Jakub choked. House was startled to realize that the oldest Chase brother was crying.

"No, stop it!" Chase screamed. He lunged at the doctor, but the security guards grabbed him by the arms to stop him. Chase threw all his weight forward and down before jumping back out of their grasp. Then he reached back, ready to punch the one standing most in his way.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" House dropped his cane and grabbed Chase's wrist. Chase whirled around on him with the other fist ready. House raised his arms to protect his head, but Chase stopped himself. He turned around when the whine of the monitor announced the removal of Ricky's feeding tube.

"Put it back," Chase demanded. But they were already wheeling the apparatus out of the room. The security guards remained firmly between Chase and the other staff members until they were out the door. The doctor paused, maybe to offer condolences, but apparently decided he didn't want to risk Chase taking a swing at him too. "Wait. Come back!"

"Robbie," Jakub murmured. He stood behind Chase with both hands on his shoulders. Chase spun around, grabbed him by the lapels, and slammed him into the wall. "Robert, stop!"

"Call them back," Chase said. "Tell them to put it back!"

"You know I won't do that, Robert," Jakub said.

"Jakub, please!" Chase begged. He was sobbing in earnest, clinging to his older brother. Jakub held him around the waist just to keep him from collapsing. "Please, don't. Don't let Ricky die like this. Please? Please! Just give us a little more time. Okay?"

"Robert, it's been nearly ten years," Jakub said. "He's not going to wake up. And you've been waiting long enough. You need to start thinking about yourself again!"

"I can't do this without him!" Chase screamed.

What exactly 'this' referred to wasn't clear, but House was seriously considering calling the psych ward to see about getting Chase committed on a suicide watch. In all his years, he had never seen someone lose it so spectacularly. He certainly never expected to see it from his stoic, pacifistic, enduring Intensivist. It was part of why he pushed Chase so much further and so much more viciously than the other two. He knew he could get away with it, and part of him wanted to see Chase crack. But now…he really didn't want to see it anymore.

"Come on, Robert," Jakub coaxed. "Let me take you home, okay? You and I need to talk. And you really need some rest."

"I'm not leaving him," Chase whimpered. He climbed onto the bed and curled up next to his twin with his hand over his heart, as though trying to reassure himself that although off the feeding tube, Ricky wasn't dead yet.

"Robert," Jakub pleaded. But nothing short of Armageddon was going to get Chase out of that room. So Jakub just sighed, tried to dry his own eyes, and left the twins in peace. House figured Chase wasn't ready to deal with him just yet, and he wasn't about to just sit there listening to the young man cry, so he followed Jakub. He caught up with him just in time to ride down in the same elevator.

"You know, for someone who doesn't want to lose his brother, you've come about as close to killing him as you could get without actually doing the deed," House commented. "What's the deal? Don't want to split the inheritance?"

"You don't understand," Jakub said brokenly. He sounded so tired. Tired of fighting his little brother. Tired of being the villain. Tired of trying to make a decision that should never have to be made.

"So explain it to me," House said. Jakub glanced at him incredulously, as if to ask why he would share his family's tragedy with someone like him. "Come on," House pushed. "If you can't convince a semi-objective stranger to see your side of things, how do you ever expect to make baby brother forgive you?"

"I don't care if he forgives me," Jakub lied. "I just want him alive!"

"And you thought this was the best way to achieve that?" House asked. Jakub sighed and shook his head. "I'll even throw in a cup of coffee," House bribed. He could shell out a couple dollars for a closer peek into this drama.

"I could use it," Jakub reluctantly agreed. After all, this Dr. House was a man Robert seemed to respect, for whatever reason. Maybe he could help Robert understand.

It was getting dark by the time they reached the cafeteria. House and Jakub sat at a table far away from the television where everyone congregated so they wouldn't be disturbed. The coffee was stale, but still hot. House noticed how Jakub added the exact same obscene amounts of cream and sugar as Robert Chase did.

"I understand why he resents me," Jakub said.

House nearly groaned at the opening, already starting to regret this. He was a researcher, not a confidant. But he still wanted to know, so he just nodded and sipped from his own cup.

"Our mother didn't want me around the house after I left," Jakub explained. "So I wasn't really a part of their lives. But I talked to our father a lot, and he always had a story to share about them."

"Really," House said skeptically. After all, according to Chase, Rowan wasn't exactly a hands-on kind of father. But if Jakub heard his doubt, he didn't let on. In fact, he started laughing.

"Oh, they were a wicked little pair," he chuckled. "You know, they got suspended from kindie their first week?"

"How did they manage that?" House was compelled to ask. He'd never thought of Chase as a hell-raiser.

"They had one of those over-anxious, do-gooder teachers," Jakub explained. "She felt that twins should be kept apart as much as possible so they could develop as independent individuals." Jakub's smile dampened a bit. "She might not have been entirely wrong, I suppose. But anyway, when Ricky and Robbie sat together, she told them move to opposite sides of the room. They refused, so she tried to make them."

"And they unleashed hell," House guessed.

"We never did work out exactly what happened," Jakub said. "But we do know that one of them kicked her. The other one bit her! At one point one of them was one on her back with his arms around her neck – I'm pretty sure that one was Robbie – while the other one was stomping on her toes trying to make her let go of his arm. And then, after they got away and ran out of the classroom, they hid in a janitor's closet for an hour before they were found. For the rest of the day, even after Dad brought them home, they clung to each other like it was the end of the world."

Somewhere in the middle of the story, Jakub's laughter dissolved into tears. Once again, House started to wonder if his search for information was worth this. What the hell was he supposed to do now? Could he maybe subtly page Wilson? Actually, that was a good idea, if not to deal with this Chase, at least with the other one. He pulled out his phone under the table and speed-dialed Wilson's extension. He couldn't leave a message without being noticed, but he figured sooner or later the oncologist would find him. In the mean time, he'd just have to keep Jakub talking and endure the mushy stuff until he got to something useful.

"I let them down," Jakub said. He'd gotten control of himself quickly and was wiping his face with his napkin. "They never should have been left alone with her. I knew it then too. I even talked to a lawyer about taking them myself. But even our father wasn't fighting the custody arrangement. No one was going to take two boys away from their mother and give them to their bachelor big brother. I had no case!"

"You think she meant to kill them?" House asked.

"I don't care if she did or not," Jakub snapped. "She destroyed her entire family just because she couldn't deal with the fact that she was third-rate dancer with a dead career." House blinked. Apparently Jakub did not idealize their mother the way Robert, despite his bitterness, still did. "And our father! Signing custody of Ricky over to Robert, of all the stupid things he could have done! This should never have been Robert's decision to make."

"So you took it away from him," House guessed.

"I had to!" Jakub insisted. It was suddenly very important for someone, anyone, to understand why he was doing this. "You know, Robert never wanted to be a doctor."

That was no surprise to House. He always imagined Rowan had forced his son into it somehow. He was glad he had, though, because Chase was damn good doctor. He'd be brilliant one day, if House had anything to say about it. It's why he was so much more vicious when Chase made a mistake, even a slight or justifiable mistake. His instincts told him that Chase could be so much better than he was, and it frustrated House that he wasn't. Frustrated him to the point that he'd almost given up on the kid.

"He became a doctor for Ricky," House supposed. Maybe that was how he convinced Rowan to give him custody?

"You have no idea how true that is," Jakub said bitterly. "Robert never wanted to be a doctor, but Ricky did."

Okay, now that was little surprising. And interesting, finally!

"They used to call themselves a tag team," Jakub nodded. "Doctor Richard Chase would take care of people's bodies while Father Robert Chase looked after their souls."

"Especially useful if Ricky screws up and kills someone," House commented.

"That's exactly what Robert used to say!" Jakub smiled.

House, on the other hand, was a bit disgruntled by that. Foreman thought Chase found House amusing because he was a suck up, but apparently they did have similar senses of humor. Chase just hadn't mastered House's cynicism yet.

"I think Robert stayed in seminary as long as he had real hope that Ricky would wake up," Jakub admitted. "He left within a month of being told for the first time that Ricky was a lost cause. Ever since then…it's like he's trying to live Ricky's life for him! Ricky may be the one who didn't wake up, but in a way Robert is the one who died. I can't bring Ricky back, but I have to at least try with Robert."

"And this is supposed to resuscitate him?" House asked. "If he's this bad now, how do you think he'll be when Ricky actually dies? Are you going to stick around to clean up the mess when Robert crashes?"

"Actually, I'm hoping that eventually I'll be able to convince Robert to come back to Oz with me," Jakub confessed.

Oh, like hell! House and Chase had both been through way too much trying to keep him here just for Jakub to swoop in and take him away now. But what was he worried about? There's no way Chase would go with Jakub.

"It's going to be slow, you know," House said. "Comatose or not, he's essentially starving to death."

"Please don't," Jakub shook his head.

House took pity on him and didn't push. He didn't want to. He wanted to berate and hassle Jakub. He wanted to side with Robert. He wanted his infamous genius to kick in and figure out a way to fix this. But he also realized, as a doctor, that Jakub was right. And, short of a miracle, Ricky was finally going to finish dying.

This was a prime example of why House was determined not to believe in God. What kind of God would allow this to happen? Oh sure, Chase's bitch of a mother could be blamed on human agency and free will. But what about Ricky's inexplicable condition? How could the just and loving God that Chase wanted so much to believe in leave Ricky the way he was? Either wake him up or let him die immediately! Don't let him linger just to make his brothers suffer, to destroy what was left of an already damaged family. And to make it worse, Robert was devout! He'd been ready to become a priest, for crying out loud! Didn't that count for anything? Apparently not, and House could only hope it was because God did not exist, because he couldn't come up with a better alternative.

"You paged me?" Wilson startled House and Jakub both out of their musing. He looked curiously at Jakub, whom he'd never seen.

"Took you long enough," House grumbled.

"Next time, include your location and I'll make it faster," Wilson said. "What's up?"

"Here," House left a few crumpled dollar bills on the table in front of Jakub. "Have another on me." He grabbed Wilson's arm and pulled him from the cafeteria. "Come on."

"Did you just buy someone else a cup of coffee?" Wilson demanded.

"Oh, get over it," House said. "Come on, you need to talk to Chase."

"Why?" Wilson asked.

"Because the guy I just shelled out three bucks for is Chase's big brother," House explained. "He came in here with a court order and took Ricky off the tube."

"Oh God," Wilson groaned. "How's Chase taking it?"

"Kicking and screaming," House said. "And I'm being literal. That's why you're going to talk to him. You're good at getting people to accept death."

"Whoa, uh-uh." Wilson stopped walking. He put up his hands and shook his head. "Their own deaths, maybe, but this is not my area. Besides, Chase isn't going to want to talk to me."

"Everyone wants to talk to you," House argued.

"House," Wilson urged.

"Look, if not you I'll have to sick Cameron on him," House said. "And she's going to be useless. At best, she'll start sobbing along with him. At worst, she'll try to convince the hospital chaplain to marry them."

"Her and Chase?" Wilson frowned.

"Her and Ricky," House corrected.

"House," Wilson repeated, putting on his disappointed tone.

"Wilson, seriously," House said in earnest. "You're good at this sort of thing. He needs you."

"Not yet, he doesn't," Wilson disagreed. "I'll talk to him when he's ready. I want to help as much as I can. God knows, he's going to need it. But he's not ready for me yet."

"Oh for the love of…" House sneered. "Fine! But when I make it worse, you're paying for his therapy. And my dry cleaning, if he gets any snotty tears on me."

A/N: My God, that was hard to write! Okay people, I need feedback on this one. Guesses and suggestions about what's to come are welcome sources of inspiration, which I need because this was really draining. I also like to hear opinions about characters, especially-but-not-limited-to Jakub, Chase, and House. I'll take any reviews, but long ones make me happiest. So let me have it! I promise to update at least one of my stories within a month if you do.