February 5

"Why are you going against my recommendation?"

House found himself being confronted by Dr. Johnson. "He's not ready," he answered, irritated when Johnson took a seat in front of his desk. It had been a long day thanks to the throbbing headache he had in addition to the pain in his leg. He had drank too much over the weekend. It had been bitterly cold outside, so he, Wilson, and Chase had launched a Kung Fu marathon, making it well into the second season by Sunday night. At one point, House had even lost control of his thermostat as Chase, Wilson, and Kacey sat shivering on the couch despite trying to share the coveted electric throw.

Now, his department was a ghost town. Foreman was suspended and Cameron had been doing both their clinic hours and even consulted on a case in the immunology department. Wilson's schedule had been packed, as it usually was on Mondays, so there was little room to harass him. Despite how luxurious it might sound to spend a day of leisure ignoring paperwork, watching television, and surfing the internet, House found himself tediously bored instead. Seeing Alan Johnson walk into his office five minutes before he was going to call it a day and leave did not inspire feelings of good will.

"What I don't understand, Dr. House, is why you agreed with me when I spoke to you Friday, but changed your mind over the weekend." His tone was far less accusatory than his words.

"I didn't agree with you Friday," House reminded him. Johnson had phoned him after Chase's session to recommend that he come back in half days. House had said nothing more than, "Okay."

"You didn't disagree with me."

"Yes, I did," House answered. "I just didn't tell you about it." He relished the frustrated reaction from the psychiatrist.

"You let me believe that you accepted my professional opinion."

"I considered your opinion," House said, "And decided you were wrong. He's not ready."

"I say he is." Johnson's long arms rested on either side of the chair, giving him the appearance of someone who was quite relaxed.

"No, you say he's ready to fill a chair at my conference table, nothing about doing actual work on actual patients."

"He needs to start small."

"You can't take baby steps when people are dying," House answered.

"My understanding of being a diagnostician is that it involves using your mind in differential diagnoses, not only doing procedures." He slowly drummed his fingers against the armrest.

"We do diagnostic procedures. As long as Chase is incapable of doing his job in full capacity, he doesn't need to be here," House argued. The most attractive aspect of Chase's training before entering the diagnostic fellowship was that he was highly skilled at keeping critical patients alive. "If you're dumb enough to think that he would stand back and let someone code because you told him he could only take part in discussion, you don't know your client." Intensivists were hands-on doctors by virtue of their specialty.

"You have to look at the whole picture, Dr. House," Johnson said calmly. "We're asking Dr. Chase to return to the place where he was brutally attacked. He needs baby steps, as you called them, to desensitize himself and acclimate with the environment. He needs to feel productive despite what his injuries and the medication have done to him."

"He's becoming more tolerant of the medicine. Fewer nightmares, less groggy, better appetite." He realized he may have been embellishing with that last one.

"How often is he having nightmares?" Johnson asked, leaning forward just a bit.

"Hmmm, you should probably ask his psychiatrist--sounds like the kind of thing that they would discuss."

"Nightmares are often reported by loved ones rather than patients themselves. As you are aware, many people don't remember their dreams or even that they were dreaming, especially when those dreams are attributable to certain drugs," Johnson explained with little expression. "Still, you've observed a decreasing trend?"

House scowled. Johnson's lack of inflection was infuriating and his pompously proper use of the English language was irritating. Was the man implying that there was something more to his relationship with Chase? What did he mean by loved ones? "He hasn't complained lately."

"He complained before?" Johnson asked.

"Woke up screaming," House exaggerated. He did not want Johnson to think he and Chase were having heart-to-heart chats over their afternoon tea.

"Screaming?" Johnson noted the oddity of that claim. "So, this was recently?"

"Excuse me, crying. He woke up crying," House snapped. "He would have been screaming if he could have made actual sounds."

"I thought he was sleeping in your living room."

"He is."

"Then how did you--"

"Because, at the time, he was sleeping in the afternoons and awake all night, but I was on my normal schedule." House refrained from ending that statement with his new pet name for Johnson, "Idiot."

Johnson nodded, accepting the answer. "It must be hard to live with someone who is keeping such odd hours."

House narrowed his eyes. Johnson was trying to trap him into saying something, though he had no idea what. "Not really," he shrugged, nonchalantly. "Chase is meticulous about not disturbing me whether I'm awake or asleep." Let Johnson try to find something incriminating about that.

"He's a considerate young man," Johnson said agreeably.

House half nodded.

"I imagine it's been helpful to have him around to cook and clean."

"Gives him something to do," House responded. "He doesn't have to, by the way, he chooses to," he explained in a preemptive strike. He had already been down this road before when Cameron insinuated that he was using Chase as a maid.

"I suppose it's a win-win situation," Johnson said.

House glared at him, bothered that the situation with Chase was giving Johnson an excuse to drag him under his microscope.

"You have someone to share the burdens of household chores and Dr. Chase has a safe environment."

House only blinked, waiting for Johnson to continue his winding train of thought.

"You've certainly gone beyond the call of employer duty," Johnson added.

"Get to your point. It's time to go home."

"Ah, I see you're eager to get home to your," he paused as if he were looking for the right word to define what Chase was to him, "Houseguest."

House had to commend Johnson for managing to say that without so much as a twinkle in his eye. "Actually, I have a hooker coming over tonight. They charge by the hour, but you know that."

Johnson ignored the gibe meant to incite him into self-defense. "It perplexes me, Dr. House. You've extended such hospitality to Dr. Chase, ensuring his safety at your own inconvenience. Yet, you want to throw him back into the environment most potentially hazardous for his emotional well-being. Exactly, why did you demand that Chase return to the clinic before he returns to work for you?"

House exhaled, "Did he come whining to you?" No one had mentioned the clinic over the weekend and Chase had not mentioned coming back to work before his leave of absence was complete. He had hoped that it was a dead subject for now.

"No."

House continued as if he did not hear Johnson's response. "If he thinks that I'm going to change my mind because you tell me to--"

"Dr. Chase has not spoken to me about it," Johnson informed him.

"Wilson?" House asked, though it was obvious. It was not the first time Wilson had reported something he said or did to someone else. Apparently Wilson had concerns about requiring Chase to work in the clinic, and this was his way to make that point without confronting House directly. That was Wilson all right, always interfering for the sake of the needy.

"Does it matter?"

House supposed Johnson had a point. Who told him was irrelevant if what Johnson wanted to discuss was the demand itself. "It's my call."

"Do you resent that I made a suggestion about the inner workings of your department?"

"No," House lied, aware that he both disliked the idea of anyone telling him how to run his department and was defiant enough to go against any suggestion that he could. But that was not the whole story.

Johnson waited quietly.

"Is that all?" House asked.

"I'm waiting for your explanation. I need to know your reason since we are collaborating on this patient's care."

"It's like riding a bronco. If it bucks you off, you have to get back on it to tame it. He needs to get over it so he can get back to his life." House waited for a reaction to his bluntness.

"His life is so intertwined with this hospital, that it's going to be next to impossible for him to both get back to his life and leave behind the trauma. I don't believe Dr. Chase will be able to handle being in the clinic for a very long time, if ever."

"I don't think that's an option," House replied, aware of how cold it sounded. "If he doesn't want people to treat him like he's that guy, he can't expect special accommodations for his delicate psyche. Every other doctor in this hospital has to do their time in the clinic."

"Dr. House, you can not realistically expect him to be able to function adequately in that environment. At least, not yet. The responsibility placed on him for others' safety, the threat against his own life, the assault: any one of those factors is traumatizing. His situation was unimaginable. The clinic will trigger memories that can keep him from working effectively and unravel the progress he's made so far," Johnson explained.

"You don't know that it will trigger memories for him," House argued. "It might if you keep telling him it will."

"I don't think it's in anyone's best interest if he has some kind of flashback while trying to work with a patient. It's not in your best interest if he's so emotionally crippled that he can never leave your home," Johnson paused, focusing on House's face. "Is it?" he asked pointedly.

House frowned, incensed by the accusation in Johnson's question. "I was shot." He pointed toward the place in his office where he had been standing when it happened. "Right about… there." He leaned back in his chair and made a show of looking from one side of the room to the other. "And, yet, here I am. Doing fine. I didn't move to a different office."

"Circumstances were a bit different, don't you think?"

"Not that different," House answered. "Both of us were nearly killed by sociopaths."

"Okay. But, you agree that there were differences in the set of circumstances?"

House sighed, rolling his eyes. "This is the part where you try to drill into my brain, isn't it?"

Johnson waited quietly.

"Fine, I'll play along if it will get you the hell out of my office." He leaned forward again and held up one finger. "Let's see. I was shot. Chase was strangled. You're right. He shouldn't go back to the clinic."

Johnson watched and listened.

House held up another finger. "One psycho vs. two."

Johnson nodded, "Continue."

He held up a third finger. "Foreman was completely useless in both situations." He expected Johnson to react to that statement, hoping to get him to focus on one of his other patients for a while. "He probably needs counseling," he said with mock concern.

"I'll take that under advisement. Is there anything else?"

House put his hand down, tired of making a game of counting out reasons. "Chase didn't deserve what happened to him."

"You did?" The psychiatrist pounced on that statement like Kacey on a chicken flavored treat.

"No," House answered quickly, less Johnson attempt to drag him into routine counseling sessions as well. "Chase is good to his patients. At least I can live content with the knowledge that I'm an ass to my patients." The danger in goading patients who were emotionally charged to start with was that some would strike back verbally or even physically. It was a risk he was willing to take to get the information he needed. "Chase didn't provoke anyone."

"So you can rationalize being shot?"

He shrugged agreeably, no longer playing around. "If any doctor was going to get shot, it was going to be me," he laughed half-heartedly.

"Do you think Dr. Chase can rationalize what happened to him?"

House was momentarily puzzled by the question. "He probably could, not that whatever he came up with would be rational." There was no rationale to be found for what Chase had endured.

"What do you mean?"

"You know Catholics--they can find a way to blame themselves for anything. It's like they all had Jewish mothers."

Johnson nodded and moved back to the point at hand. "Do you honestly believe Dr. Chase should not work for you until he can work in the clinic? Was it always your intention to require that he work in the clinic or did you make that demand rashly?"

"I made it. That's what matters." House guessed that Wilson had told Johnson the details of the conversation from Friday night, including the interpretation that he used the demand of clinic hours just to get Chase to stop asking about coming back to work early.

"It's not all that matters. You can undo it."

"How about you answer a question for me, Johnson," House suggested, deflecting from the subject of the clinic. When Johnson did not protest he continued, "Why'd you switch his medication?"

"I felt it was appropriate."

"Why did you feel it was appropriate?" House needed to know if Chase was having suicidal thoughts.

"Dr. House, you know that would breach doctor-patient confidentiality."

"Dr. Johnson," House started in the same placating tone, "I'm his doctor too. I'm concerned."

"You're more than his doctor," Johnson replied quickly, a little too quickly.

House noticed the anomaly. It was a smile--a true, amused, knowing smile on the least expressive man he had ever known. "Exactly what do you mean by that?" he asked. The smile disappeared immediately, as if Johnson realized he had let his guard down by showing some emotion.

"You are more than his doctor," Johnson repeated in his normal tone.

"How?"

"You don't need me to tell you how," Johnson said.

It was infuriating House. "I need you to tell me what you think I am to Chase."

"You're his boss," Johnson answered evenly.

House could almost hear the "for one thing" that did not finish Johnson's statement. "And?"

"You tell me," Johnson responded.

"Has anyone ever told you you're a right pain in the ass?"

Before Johnson could answer, House's phone rang.

"Thank God, important doctor stuff," he said, taking the receiver and saying "House," into the phone. "You can leave now," he told the other doctor.

Johnson started to stand.

"Wait," House said, motioning for him to sit down. "How long has he been there?" he asked the person on the phone. "I'm on my way." He turned to Johnson, "Chase is in the clinic."