Author's note: This chapter was originally twice this long, but I was having so much trouble writing this one scene, that I decided to cut the chapter in half, because I haven't posted in a while.

Hope you like this. I have the next chapter mostly written, just need to get the kinks out.

Disclaimer: Don't own House/ David Shore characters.

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Cardboard Therapy

"Beep! Beep!"

Chase sighs as he turns off the alarm on his beeper.

It's Wilson this time. Both he and Cuddy have been trying to get a hold of him for the past ten minutes, and can't find where he's disappeared off to. He doesn't want them to find him, not now.

Chase looks over the horizon on this crisps autumn day, taking in the beautiful New Jersey landscape. A lot of people come up to the roof to think, smoke, make out, but when he goes up to the ledge and looks out, he feels like he is alone on his own mountain top.

For four years, this has been his sanctuary from the rigors and craziness of the job. His place to clear his head, gather himself.

The view isn't working today. Chase feels his composure slipping away from him. The anger is boiling in his stomach and seeping into his veins. All he wants to do is scream, but he knows that acting like a two year old will do no good. Besides, it's not like he's alone on the roof. A lot of people must be having a trying day. In addition to a couple of orderlies are kicking a soccer ball around, there's a what seems like a whole surgical team taking a cigarette break. It's not like his reputation needs to take another hit, by people reporting that House finally broke him.

House. Chase feels himself shaking, trying to contain all the feelings of anger, disappointment, and betrayal inside. He tells himself, that he knew this was coming, but he never thought that House would do something this extreme. House usually has a reason for his madness. Chase can't see it. That's what upsets him the most. He can't find any positive reason to why House would do this.

"Beep! Beep!"

He looks down at the number. It's from Cuddy. He wonders if she and Wilson finally decided to tag team. He turns off the alarm.

A light wind, brings a cool breeze to where he's standing. It lightly caresses the back of his neck. He closes his eyes, trying to let the coolness calm the turmoil inside him.

"Beep! Beep!"

Chase throws his head back and groans. Now it's coming from Geriatrics! Cuddy and Wilson are trying to outsmart him. Fed up and annoyed, Chase hurls the beeper off the roof, with a loud grunt.

Chase smiles as he looks at the pavement below, where the gadget shattered. He exhales deeply. He straightens up and looks up at the sky. He relaxes his arms to the side, and opens his palms, and closes his eyes to let the breeze go through him.

The silence and the cool breeze start to have a soothing effect…

"Hey Buddy!" a voice interrupts his reprieve. "Whatever it is, it isn't worth it!"

Chase opens his eyes and turns around to see one of the orderlies approaching him very slowly with his arms spread out in front of him.

He looks around to the other people on the roof. They all have frozen in the spots, and have frightened looks on their faces.

"Let's just talk about this." The man continues.

Chase rolls his eyes. "I'm not going to pitch myself off the ledge!" He snarls at them, before sulking back into the building.

000---000

Rebecca enters clinic looking rather ticked off.

It was unusually quiet in clinic today. She had figured that she was in for another uneventful eight to five shift, full of convincing patients that they don't need antibiotics for a stuffy nose. That was, until Dr. Turner from Diagnostics came in, wailing that House was going to fire him. She didn't expect to uncover a kidnapping scheme or run all over the hospital looking for a janitor. Luckily, the Hunchback Janitor from the Shelly Wing was already on his way to Diagnostics. She really didn't expect that working at a free clinic in Princeton, New Jersey, would be as eventful as it has been, and she has one person to thank for that.

"Where've you been?" Nurse Brenda asks reprimanding , when she approaches the nurses' station.

"Diagnostics." Rebecca simply says. Brenda gives her a knowing nod. Many people look like that when they come from Diagnostics.

"What did Dr. House do now?"

"Take hostages."

"What else is knew." Brenda says unimpressed, as she hands her a patient chart and walks away.

Rebecca grins and shakes her head. House's reputation for being both brilliant and disagreeable have proceeded him. She's heard things from other nurses and doctors, but she figured that they were over exaggerating.

Rebecca finally understands why Robert was so worried about House. What she doesn't understand is why he chose to work for him, if he thought that something like this could happen. Either this is a really great job, or there's more to Robert Chase than she first realized.

Rebecca sighs, as she opens the patient chart to get a look at it before she goes into the clinic room.

Foreman comes up to her, "Valera, I need you finish up with the woman in room four, for me."

Rebecca sees that he's wearing pink scrubs. "What happened to your suit? Aw, don't tell me you're pawning off a spitter on me, again."

Foreman narrows his eyes at her, "She's not a spitter, it's Munchausen's."

"Oh, why don't you just discharge her?"

Foreman rolls his eyes, "Because I want you to."

Rebecca frowns. She's never responds well to "because I told you to." She'd probably give Foreman less of a fight, if he didn't act so condescending towards her.

"Fine, then you can handle bloody stool, and vomiting." She offers her chart to him.

Foreman glares at her. He keeps the Munchausen's folder. "Where's Hobbs?" He walks away.

Nurse Brenda comes up to her. "No one came in with bloody stool and vomiting."

Valera shrugs impishly, "Oh, I must have mis-read."

000---000

Cameron's been eyeing her ever since she returned to the clinic. She watches her as she walks up to the nursing station, talks with Foreman, laughing with Brenda.

She feels a hand on her shoulder, causing her to jump.

"Oh, sorry Dr. Cameron," Nurse Arlene says. "I need you to sign Mr. Davidov's discharge papers."

Cameron grabs the chart, but keeping her eyes on the woman talking with Brenda. Arlene follows Cameron's gaze.

"Cocky little thing, isn't she?" Arlene insinuates, she takes the chart back. "Everyone thinks so."

Cameron clenches her jaw and stomps towards the woman. Behind her, Arlene smirks evilly.

000---000

Cameron is poised to rip Rebecca's head off when Cuddy and Wilson bursts into clinic.

"Cameron!" Cuddy shouts. "Have you seen Chase?"

Arlene throws her head back and groans. She puts her cell phone back in her pocket and walks back to the ER.

Cameron turns to Cuddy surprised. "Chase? No, why?"

Wilson in a more calm manner. "He isn't answering his page, and an orderly said that he was about to jump off the building."

Cameron whirls her head around. Chase jumping off the building?

"That's insane!" someone interjects. "If Dr. House did that to me, I'd be homicidal, not suicidal."

They all turn towards Rebecca, surprised that he's in the room.

Cuddy shoots her an annoyed look. "Dr. Valera, do you know where Dr. Chase is?"

"No." Rebecca whispers.

"Then I think your involvement with the situation, is over."

Rebecca pouts, she quickly goes into a clinic room.

Cameron's mind is spinning. House did something that made Chase want to jump off the PPTH?

"Do you want us to try and page him?" Nurse Brenda suggests.

Cuddy shakes her head. "He threw his pager off the roof."

"What the hell is going on?" Cameron exasperates.

000---000

Chase flops his head on his desk, trying to find one moment of peace, and not let the many dark thoughts swimming his head drown him.

He has convince the nurses in Geriatrics that he isn't suicidal, and just needs sometime to himself. They agreed to hold everyone off, and tell Cuddy that they haven't seen him, until he's ready.

Ready for what, he's not sure. He has a lot of things to figure out.

He remembers his and House's relationship between House firing him, and Cuddy rehiring him for the second team. Some of it was actually friendly. He enjoyed relating to him as a non- fellow.

Chase knew that when he took the team lead job, that his relationship with House would change again, but he didn't expect that their relationship regress back to square one?

As much as he expected something like this, he had hoped that he would be proven wrong. Maybe he had hoped for too much from House. He really should have known better. Shouldn't have deluded himself.

Chase continues banging his head lightly on the cool steel desk, when Cameron appears at the door's threshold.

"Hi." She says.

Chase lifts his head up. His blond hair falling in front of his eyes. He blows them out of the way to make sure he's seeing correctly.

"Hi," he answers guardedly. As glad as he is to see her, he can't help but remember their tiff in the locker room the night before.

"Cuddy told me about what happened with House." She looks at him, she can still feel last nights tension between them. "I wanted to see if you're okay."

Chase gives her a guarded smile. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, you've got the whole hospital worried about you."

"Just the whole hospital?"

Cameron looks at the cement floor. "I am too, of course."

"And last night?"

Cameron lets out a breath. "We can table that, for now."

Chase notices her stance. She's leaning on the door, with her arms cross, not quite looking into his eyes. She's still a little frosty from whatever she's mad about, but at least she's willing to put that aside, for his benefit.

"That's good to know," he says calmly.

Inwardly, he's jumping for joy. He didn't think he could handle another fight with her. Everything going wrong today is compounding into a severe migrane, and it isn't even noon yet.

"I wonder what crazy reason House is giving Cuddy right now to get out of trouble." He muses.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure he's going to be living in the clinic for the next month."

Chase smirks. "That's good to know, but it doesn't seem like enough does it."

"How so."

"I don't know. Clinic doesn't seem like enough, how about bedpan duty for a week?"

"Like that would happen."

"Maybe I should suggest it? He'd probably think twice before messing with me again."

"Well, at least he did you a favor." Cameron adds.

Chase heart drops down to his stomach. The last thing he wants Cameron to do is try and defuse the situation.

"What he did was awful and sadistic," Chase asks coolly.

"I know, but you've been worried about how the new people would respond to House. Now, at least you'll know who can handle him. I heard nine people decided to stick it out."

"Why do you have do that?"

"Do what? I'm just trying to find the positive in this whole incident."

Chase gets up. He loosens his tie. Suddenly, this room is feeling a little suffocating.

"Can't I vent without you defending him?" he asks indignantly.

Cameron pouts. "I'm not defending him."

"You always defend him. But that's not the point."

"Then what is the point?"

Chase lets out a snort. "Forget it, I need a walk." He starts towards the door, and head down the hallway.

Cameron glares at his back. She calls out to him. "Fine then! Walk away! Go find her to talk to."

"Her?" Chase explodes. He marches his way back to Cameron, making her feel frighten at his outburst. "What are you talking about? He's undercutting my authority, Cameron! How are my fellows suppose to take me seriously, if House is cutting off my testicles in front of them, before I even hire them." He looks at her desperately, trying to find some kind of understanding.

Cameron looks at the ground, she doesn't know how to react to the revelation. She'd like to comfort him, but she's still stinging from the fight.

"You don't know if that is what he's trying to do. It could be House being House."

Chase looks at her incredulously. "So I should just let it be, then?" He turns away in disgust and jogs down the hallway disappearing around the corner.

000---000

Chase finds himself running down the halls of the hospital for the second time today. This time he has no destination. He finds it hard to breathe, like the walls are closing in on him. He sees a fire exit and dashes towards that direction.

000---000

Chase burst out of the hospital and into the daylight. He finds himself in an alleyway surrounded by dumpsters and a pile of hundreds of disregarded cardboard boxes. He bends low, hands on his knees, trying to support himself as gasps for air.

Suddenly, all his emotions surge through him. He can no longer contain them. He sees a small card board box by his feet, and launches it into the air with a soccer kick. He runs to the pile, and grabs a box, causing an avalanche of cardboard to come down on him. He jumps out of the way at the last second. He takes the box in his hand, and throws it to the ground. He kicks it and launches it across the alley. He sees another box on the ground. He stomps on it into oblivion, stomping all his pent up frustration in the process.

Once the box is flatten, Chase picks up another box. He turns around to fling it away, but stops short. The old hunchback is sitting by the stoop smoking a cigarette, watching him. Chase flushes in embarrassment, and drops the box.

000---000

Mr. Loomis, starts gathering the scattered boxes, and throws them in the compactor. Chase goes to help him. He tosses a box in the compactor.

"Don't worry about it, young doc," Mr. Loomis drawls.

"Yeah, but I made the mess."

"S'alright. I saw what the cripple doc did. Make me go bonkers too."

Chase blushes. He can't believe that he lost it, in such an undignified manner.

"Happens more often than you think." Mr. Loomis continues.

"What, doctor's stealing other doctor's interviews?"

"No, doctor's coming back here to let out their frustrations. Course it would happen a lot less if those kids would throw the boxes away, instead of piling them up like that."

Chase chuckles. He figures a lot of doctors would rather come out here and punch in a box, or bang on the dumpsters, instead the person their mad at.

They move into an easy silence as they toss the boxes into the compactor.

Chase finds himself at ease, single-mindedly concentrating on the task at hand.

"So what are you going to do?" Mr. Loomis asks.

"Bout what?"

"Dr. Cottage?"

"Dr. Cottage? You mean Dr. House?" Chase snickers.

"It's a building structure isn't it? I heard you tell him that you weren't going to take it in the arse anymore. What's an arse anyways?"

Chase grimaces, "Eh… donkey."

"Oh. You Brits sure have weird names for things."

Chase rolls his eyes. "I'm… oh never mind."

"So what are you going to do?"

Chase stops what he's doing, mid- toss. "I'm not sure. I don't even know why I took the job. I knew House was capable of pulling off something like this.

'Dr. Cuddy said that I could have my old surgeon job, if House did something insufferable. I think this qualifies."

The old janitor nods, in agreement. "Well then, you really should stop throwing out the trash. Wouldn't want to get those surgeon hands of yours scratched up now."

He takes the box away from Chase, who wipes the grime off his hands on Foreman's suit. Foreman's suit is too far gone by now, a little dirt won't make a difference. He grimaces as he thinks how much the flashy thing costs. He makes his way off the mountain of cardboard.

"You know, young man," Mr. Loomis calls out to him, "It's good that you're not letting him push you around, but you shouldn't let the man bully you out of something you want."

Chase tilts his head to the side absorbing the information. The janitor just turns around and continues tossing boxes, like he hadn't given him any advice at all.

Chase takes a pensive moment before making his way back into the hospital.

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Next Chapter: Chase confronts House and Cuddy!

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Author' note: To the lucky few who got an special preview, I am aware that the scene doesn't appear in this chapter. It's going to be in the next chapter.

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Please R&R!