Author's Note: Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always. – Hippocrates
Disclaimer: I don't own House, M.D., nor its concepts, characters, and setting, but I do love them, especially Chase. This story is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to take the place of the advice of either physicians or lawyers licensed to practice in your country or state.
Midnight found them snuggled together in post-coital comfort.
"I feel a lot better," Chase admitted.
"Alcohol and sex will do that for you," Peggy agreed. She kissed the tousled blond head. "Chase, I don't want you to think—I mean—this is nice, this was fun, but—
"You don't want to clear out a drawer for me?" he teased. "I'm crushed."
She pulled the pillow from behind her head and hit him with it.
"It's okay," he agreed easily. "I know what a one night stand is."
"Wait— it doesn't have to be just the one night—"
"But we don't own each other. Got it. Leave it at PRN, shall we?"
She sank back down and put her arms around him again. "Yeah, PRN."
Chase was late for rounds, but still in a good mood from the sex. He found the group in the room of the patient whose stent implantation he'd scrubbed in for, with the happy result that Dr. Asgre, instead of making a snide remark about the Australian's punctuality, or lack of it, asked him about the procedure, for once justifying Chase's presence in the group.
It was a good omen, he felt. When House came in, he would try talking to him about letting him help, at least with the differential diagnoses, and since they'd be together when the tests were decided on, with the labs and procedures as well. It made sense. House wasn't unreasonable.
He didn't know how much more he could study, anyway. The test was next week, and he felt satisfied that he was at the saturation point as far as knowledge went, and he knew himself well enough to know that if he kept studying after he was ready, he'd be too tense to do well at the test-taking itself. So it was going to be DDXing or crossword puzzles.
He arrived back at the DDM office shortly before nine to find his boss reading a magazine at the conference table. "You're late!" House snapped. He let the magazine drop on the glass tabletop.
"I-I was doing rounds," Chase stuttered. House was never here this early.
"Cardiology rounds don't last that long, and I can smell your girlfriend's perfume. You're paid for an eight hour day, you know."
Chase gaped at him. "They ran long. Ask Dr. Asgre, if you don't believe me, but I swear, I've been here since—"
"Shall I ask Security to pull the camera footage from the front doors?"
"If you like." Was this what it was going to be like now? He rubbed his forehead. He shouldn't have confronted House yesterday. Despair pushed at him. "Tell them to look at quarter after seven, that's when I got in."
"Cardiology rounds start at seven," House pointed out.
"Yeah."
"So you admit you were late?"
What? "Yeah, I was late."
"There's no coffee."
Was that what this was about? "Sorry," Chase apologized. "I'll make it now." House picked up the magazine again, while Chase put a clean cone filter in the basket, ripped open a packet of coffee and dumped it in, then went to the little beverage refrigerator, removed a plastic water pitcher of the type used throughout the hospital in patient rooms, filled the reservoir, hit the start button, then refilled the pitcher at the sink, and put it back in the fridge.
"What's with the pitcher?" House asked curiously.
"Tastes better if the water's cold."
"It's not cold from the tap?"
"Not cold enough."
"Hmmm." House laid down the magazine. "Go get your coat."
Chase blanched. The picture of Cuddy's assistant being shoved out the door without benefit of clergy was vivid in his memory. "My coat? What for?"
"Are you going to question everything I tell you to do? What do you think you'd need your coat for? We're going somewhere." House pulled a piece of paper out of the magazine and handed it to Chase. "Here's your revised schedule. I told Cuddy it's not fair that everyone gets to play with my fellow except me."
Chase looked at his boss, bemused, then at the paper. "American College of Physicians. Philadelphia."
"It's an hour away. They're having a conference. There's a panel we should attend."
"Why'd I make coffee if we're going to Philadelphia?"
House produced an enormous thermos. "You can pour it in here. We're taking it with us."
House drove like a maniac.
Or maybe it was just that Chase was unsettled that traffic here flowed on the right side of the road instead of the left. He looked out the window to take his mind off it and was rewarded with a mind-blowing display of autumn glory, dazzling reds, oranges, and golds, bolstered here and there by still vibrant greens, or sometimes deep browns. Leaves were everywhere, on the trees, floating in the air, laying in mixed jewelers' beds of ruby, emerald, and citrine on the ground. "Beautiful," he breathed.
"The leaves don't change in Australia?"
"Yeah, they do, here and there, but mostly… there're a lot of evergreens at home. Not so many deciduous trees like here."
"You know what a differential diagnosis is?"
Nice segue. "Sure." Why did he think Chase had wanted a fellowship with him?
"Rhinitis. Go."
"Okay. Umm. Rhinitis is a runny nose. Could be allergic rhinitis: hay fever. Maybe the patient is abusing nasal decongestants. Or it could be a rhinovirus—the common cold."
"How do you tell which it actually is?"
Chase thought about it. "Allergies don't cause a fever, so if there is one, it's a cold."
"What if there's no fever?"
"If they're jittery and can't sleep, I'd check their purse or pockets for the decongestant. If there's a lot of pollen around, it's hay fever. And that's weird, isn't it? Why is pollinosis called 'hay fever' when it doesn't cause a fever?"
"Because people are idiots."
The panel was called Stump the Professor.
It was a sort of medical parlor game.
A case was presented: a 73 year old woman with a three month history of progressive confusion is brought in by her husband, who thinks she 'isn't acting right'. She'd been in her usual state of health until three months before when she began to be increasingly forgetful. She had trouble finding the right words when she spoke. She got lost driving in the neighborhood she'd lived in for thirty years. She needed help to cook or to dress herself. She was thin and frail, timid and fearful.
"Was it her normal personality to be timid and fearful, or was it a response to the increasing confusion?" the 'Professor' asked.
The presenter couldn't say.
Audience members were encouraged to yell out possible diagnoses.
Physical exam was normal. Neurological exam was normal.
The Professor 'ordered' some tests, helped by the suggestions called out by the audience. LP was normal, no elevated white blood cell count, liver and kidneys normal.
She summed it up as rapidly progressing dementia with no sign of infection or laboratory abnormalities.
She mooted some possibilities: could be congenital like Alzheimer's or it could be infectious. Perhaps an STD. Maybe Parkinson's or Mad Cow.
Chase watched the entire proceeding in passive silence, wondering why they'd driven fifty miles to watch someone else do a mock presentation of what they were hired to do for real back at the hospital, but when the Professor rejected an audience member's suggestion that she get a CT scan on the grounds that since there were no physical symptoms like seizures or tremors, it wouldn't show much, Chase gasped like someone taking their first breath after being stuck with a 0.1 mg dose of epinephrine and yelled out, "What if it's a glioblastoma? How are you gonna see that without a CT scan?"
"Good point," the professor agreed from the stage. "Run the CT scan."
The presenter flourished the scan. It showed a brain tumor the size of a golf ball.
House, in the seat next to Chase, sported a Cheshire cat grin.
Afterwards, when they headed back to where they'd parked, force of habit made Chase walk to the left side of car, where the passenger side would be at home. House gave him a funny look, then shrugged and tossed the keys over the roof to him. "You wanna drive? Fine, my leg hurts anyway."
Right side, right side, right side. It wasn't that difficult really. Just drive on the side opposite to where the steering wheel was placed. He wondered how people managed who imported their cars as well.
"You've got a driver's license, right?"
Chase snorted. "Now you ask? Yeah, I've got an IDL."
"So…" House commented, after a few miles had passed in silence. "That's the job."
"I know," Chase said. "Who do you think asked my dad to call you? How'd I do in the panel, do you think?"
House verbalized what they both already knew. "You sat on your thumb during the differential diagnosis, but you pulled it out insisting on the CT scan."
Silence again for a while, then, "House?"
"What is it?"
"Next time we catch a case, you're gonna tell me, right?"
House smiled. "You're an idiot," he replied.