"I can run the test myself if you want me to," Cameron offered. She had just drawn some blood for Chase's next HIV test. She had never been squeamish about blood, but it did bother her that she had, inevitably, caused Chase more pain. He seemed far less bothered by it than she did.
He nodded as he re-buttoned his shirt sleeve at the wrist. His heart was beating too fast. He had never before realized how far it was between the elevator and the office. No less than five staff members had stopped what they were doing to stare at him as he walked past them. None of them spoke. Or, if they did, it went unheard. This was playing out just like one of his nightmares where everything was in slow motion and people gawked at him and shook their heads in pity or disgust. He kept going with the singular goal of reaching the safe haven of the Diagnostics office. He forgot all about House's advice to hold his head high when he came back into the hospital. "Duck and cover" seemed much more appropriate strategy.
He was torn between wanting to stay exactly where he was and racing from the office, rescuing his vehicle from the parking lot where it had been since he had parked the morning of the attack, and driving as far away as fast as he could. He was grateful that he had an assigned parking spot and staff parking pass. Otherwise, his car probably would have been towed away by now.
"I thinkā¦" Chase started to stand. "I think I need to go," he said.
Cameron noticed that he was unsteady. She grabbed his arm. "You shouldn't get up too quickly," she reminded him. She assumed he had not eaten anything that morning, less he risk affecting the lab results. "Let me get you some juice or something," she offered, though it was unusual for someone to be dizzy from such a small amount of blood loss.
His head was spinning, but he knew it was not just because he had had blood taken. His heart was pounding and he heard a rushing sound that reminded him of holding a seashell to his ear and listening to the "ocean." He inhaled a choppy breath.
"You need to sit back down," Cameron told him, realizing how pale he had become. "I think you're going to pass out."
"I think my heart's going to explode," he whispered. He fell back into the chair and closed his eyes, wincing as his heart continued to pound furiously and painfully.
Cameron felt for his pulse and found that it was high. He was starting to sweat. She reminded herself that he was young and healthy and at a very low risk for a true cardiac episode. "You're having a panic attack," she diagnosed. She could only imagine how much stress came from returning to the hospital, seeing the psychiatrist, and having another HIV test within the span of about two hours. "Did Dr. Johnson prescribe anything for anxiety?"
Chase shook his head. "I was fine there," he told her.
"What medicines are you taking? I can get you something that won't interfere with the others," she offered.
"No," he answered.
"Chase, your heart is racing. You need something to calm down," she argued. "I'll get you some Klonopin. It should be safe."
"No," he told her again.
"Chase," she said his name as if it were a desperate attempt to get him to see reason.
"I can't drug myself every time I get upset," he kept his eyes closed and tried to focus his breathing to slow his heart.
"You need something to stop the attack."
"No!" Chase raised his voice.
"Your heart rate is--"
"Slowing down," Chase interrupted her. "I said no. I don't want to be sedated. Let me make a decision for myself. Please."
Cameron backed away from him to give him space, realizing that someone standing over him was likely to increase his anxiety. She waited, watching him closely. His respiration steadied as the minutes passed. She was almost offended that he had refused her medical help, but she was more impressed that he did not want to be drugged into oblivion instead of facing his problems. His words echoed in her mind. I said no.
"I should get this blood to the lab," she said. She was eager to get the blood tested and waiting too long might ruin the sample. "The confirmatory test will take longer, but I can be back with the results of the rapid test in fifteen minutes. Will you wait for me?"
"Yeah," Chase answered. "Thanks," he made a half-hearted attempt to smile. His life as he knew it had ceased in the clinic, but there was still hope to getting back to normal--unless that test came back positive. That result would change everything. Forever.
He waited and wondered where House and Foreman were. He noticed the writing on the whiteboard and realized they had taken on a patient. But, still, House rarely saw patients. It was too early for lunch. He must be with Wilson, Chase decided. He saw that Foreman's laptop was at the other end of the table, closed at the moment. Probably writing another article, he guessed, reminding himself that he had missed his last deadline for publication.
The notebook that Johnson had given him caught his eye. He had set it on the table when he came into the office. He wondered for a moment if writing might help him stave off another panic attack. Hoping that he would not be interrupted, he decided to give it a shot.
"Dr. Johnson said that "stream of consciousness could reveal much." I'm not sure how much I want to reveal to anyone, even myself. Is paranoia actually paranoia when it's firmly grounded in reality? I know that three nurses and two doctors were watching me like they thought I was some kind of freak when I walked through the hallway. Damn. That sounds paranoid.
"I can't let what other people think get to me. I don't know what other people think. I can' t let my fear of what other people think get to me. That's better. It's arrogant to assume they're thinking about me at all.
"Reactions don't lie, though. It's wishful thinking to hope they won't see me and think about it, at least at first, if what Cuddy said was true. She wouldn't lie about that. She wouldn't want me to think that everyone knew what happened."
Chase found that his mood fluctuated with the words he wrote. He was hopeful one moment, downtrodden the next."Does it matter if someone thinks about what happened? Only if it interferes with our jobs. So, yes, it matters. I don't have to let shame disrupt my work. I can't. I can't control what other people think, but I don't want patient care to be risked by my presence. I'm worrying too much about things I can't control. I'm putting too much emphasis on myself. I'm not so important that people can't look at me without thinking about what happened. I don't matter that much in the grand scheme of things, not even in this fishbowl.
"It's not just about the patients. The problem is thinking leads to talking and I don't want anyone to try to talk to me about it. I don't want to hear 'I'm sorry,' because I don't want them to know and if they acknowledge it, I have to acknowledge it and I really want to forget it.
"Why am I so ashamed? I didn't do anything wrong, did I? Why does it matter to me if people know I was attacked? I did the best I could. I don't want to think about it." He shivered and shut the book. Writing had not solved anything, nor did he feel especially enlightened; but he was calm, so that had to count for something.
He looked up when he saw a figure approaching the doorway. It was not quite time for Cameron to be back.
Foreman walked into the office quietly. He stopped when he saw Chase. The two of them made eye contact. The tension between them hung in the air like a heavy, suffocating cloud.
"Hey," Foreman said.
"Hey," Chase responded.
Neither looked away from the other. Chase wondered if they were actually going to have a stare-down like a couple of juvenile brats. The part of him that usually wanted to be cordial was silent, not even prodding him to ask Foreman how he was doing.
Foreman did not take his eyes off Chase as he sat down across from him.
Chase could not decipher the message Foreman was sending. He was moving slowly, like he was tired or sad. He lacked the usual spark of defiance in his eyes that gave him a cocky air of confidence. If anything, Foreman seemed less confident than Chase had ever seen him before. He was glad he had stopped writing before Foreman arrived, less he be questioned about what he was writing. He kept a protective hand over the notebook which was too large to be completely covered by his palm.
"I see Dr. Johnson wants you to get in touch with your feelings," Foreman said, nodding toward the partially hidden notebook.
Chase could not stop his eyes from divulging his surprise at the statement. It told him that Foreman was having counseling sessions as well.
Foreman reached into the computer case that he had left on the floor beside the table and pulled out a spiral notebook almost identical to the one Chase was hiding. It was a moldy green color. He held it up so that Chase could see and shrugged.
Chase felt the corners of his mouth twitching. Before he could help it, he found that he was not only smiling but laughing at the idea that they both had been provided with notebooks with which they were to capture their feelings. He got the mental image of Johnson rummaging through another drawer until he found a notebook for Foreman. If he gave them out to everyone, why did he not have them better organized?
Foreman was aghast that Chase found it funny. How could he think it was funny given what they were supposed to be writing about?
Chase saw that Foreman did not share his amusement. He stopped laughing and his smile faded. He looked back at his notebook and then at Foreman's. "Mine's prettier," he said, holding up his blue notebook and starting to laugh again.
Foreman's eyes bulged. He was both annoyed and concerned that Chase was cackling over the notebooks. He had never seen Chase laugh so hard about anything before, not even one of House's jokes. But this was not funny to him, not in the least. He frowned, concluding that Chase was still unhinged.
"Oh, come on," Chase said, catching a breath. "Don't you think it's funny?" Neither of them were forthcoming about feelings, yet both had been ordered to emote. He imagined Foreman writing in his own notebook and took it a step further in his own mind by having his imaginary Foreman dotting his i's with little hearts, which only caused him to laugh with more gusto.
"No," Foreman answered. "I don't feel like getting in touch with my feelings."
"Sounds to me like you are in touch with your feelings about not wanting to be in touch with your feelings," Chase said. "Go with that," he urged, straight faced, giving a slight nod.
"Have you lost your mind?" Foreman asked, annoyed. He suspected that Chase was trying to provoke him.
"Obviously," Chase answered, defiantly. "You're in therapy because you were there when they attacked me. You're giving Dr. Johnson a different perspective of what happened. I don't have one ounce of control about what he knows because he can just ask someone else--you. Maybe I don't want you to tell him anything," he glared. "I think the whole thing sucks."
"I won't tell him anything to embarrass you," Foreman offered.
"Yeah. We're so far beyond that," Chase said with a bitter laugh. The fact that Dr. Johnson knew anything at all embarrassed him. "The idea of you writing down all your feelings while I'm writing down all my feelings while Dr. Johnson is looking in, on, and under his desk for another notebook for another client is ludicrous enough to laugh about. You want me to cry instead?" Chase asked. "Would that make you feel better? Would that be the normal thing to do? Tell me because I don't know what normal is. How am I supposed to act?"
Foreman shrugged, knowing that he could not afford to let himself be sucked into a potentially volatile conversation. He did not know what normal was either. He knew that he expected Chase to be more subdued, more like his old self.
"What the hell," Chase simpered. "I think we ought to rent Steel Magnolias, braid each other's hair, eat ice cream, and bond until we're BFF's."
Foreman had no idea how to respond. He feard this was all going to culminate in a psychotic break for Chase, but if he said anything about his concerns, he would be punished by the administration. He knew one thing was certain: if things got heated between him and Chase, he would be declared the bad guy.
Chase saw that Foreman was watching him with trepidation. "I'm not crazy," he asserted. "That's actually a sign of being crazy. You know--saying that you're not. Maybe I am. You don't have enough hair to braid anyway. I could paint your toenails instead," he started to laugh again, until he saw Cameron at the door.
She came back into the office holding a sheet of paper. "What's so funny?" she asked, looking between the two of them. Chase was clearly amused, but Foreman looked irritated.
"Nothing," Foreman answered curtly.
"He doesn't have a sense of humor," Chase told her. He got up and met her, reaching for the paper. He did not have to read it though. The smile that greeted him told him all he needed to know. "It's negative?" he asked, scanning the paper to find the result.
"It's negative!" Cameron nodded. "You know what that means, right? It's been long enough since the exposure that you would have begun to produce antibodies by now. The odds of getting a positive with the confirmatory test or a later test are slim."
"Oh, thank God!" Chase exclaimed, throwing his arms around Cameron. "Thank you for doing the test," he whispered.
She returned his hug with enthusiasm. She had worried earlier that he was being distant because he was angry with her. She had agonized over their last conversation while waiting for the results. She tried to tell herself that he was distant because of the stress and the panic attack. Then she reminded herself that she had contributed to that stress leading to the panic attack by telling everyone about his mother's death. She feared that he was only spending time with her because he needed someone to run the HIV test.
Chase lifted Cameron two inches off the floor, tightening his hug. "Thank you," he said again.
"I'm glad you're okay."
"Was that the HIV test?" Foreman asked, interrupting his colleagues' embrace.
Chase set Cameron back on the floor and let her go.
Cameron turned to him with a scathing expression. "Obviously," she answered, reminding Foreman of Chase.
"It's great that it's negative," he said, trying to sound enthusiastic, but not quite succeeding. While he was glad that Chase had not contracted HIV, he had little zeal for anything at the moment. He had spent his morning biting his tongue to keep from offending others so he would not garner further complaints and lose his treatment privileges. He hoped that the removal of the possible death sentence from AIDS would help Chase stop behaving in such a bizarre way, deciding to chalk this latest round of strange behavior up to the pressure of waiting for the test results. Otherwise, he would have to assume that he was the cause of Chase's bouts of erratic reactions since everyone else seemed to be of the opinion that Chase was doing as well as could be expected under the circumstances.
Cameron turned back to Chase, "What are you doing the rest of the day?"
"I've got to take my car home."
"Oh, I don't think you should drive yet," she warned.
"I'm off most of the medicines," Chase told her. "You drove while you were taking the ARVs," he reminded her.
"I didn't have to take seventeen other things at the same time," she reminded him.
"I'm off most of the other drugs now,"
"Still, you said they may you sleepy, whereas they made me wired. You shouldn't drive. If you can wait until lunchtime, I can drive your car back to your place, or House's, whichever you want," she offered. "We figured out the case. The patient is getting better. I don't have to stay here all afternoon."
Foreman ignored the rest of their conversation. Something kept gnawing at his gut, telling him that Chase was not doing nearly as well as the others asserted. They had not been there. They had not witnessed what he endured. Foreman reassessed his promise to avoid saying anything to Johnson that would embarrass Chase. Johnson was neutral and he was in a position of power. It was up to him to decide if Chase was competent to do his job. Someone who could--and would--do something about it needed to accept just how unstable Chase actually was.
AN: I'm sorry it's taken so long to update! Thank you again to everyone who is following the story and thanks for the feedback!
