Author's Note: "I follow cheerfully; and, did I not, wicked and wretched, I must follow still.
Whoever yields properly to fate, is deemed wise among men, and knows the laws of heaven." –Euripides, Frag.965

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.

To the Americans, Boxing Day was a regular workday, just as their Thanksgiving had been a non-holiday to Chase. If he were home, he'd be surfing today, or at least be at the beach. He tried not to let it bother him, an effort made easier by the profoundly enjoyable Chrissie the previous day.

Frost had painted diamond encrusted lace onto the huge windows of the DDM conference room, and Chase had brought a tin of bikkies—cookies, that is—that Lisa's friends had given him, to share with House. He set the tin by the microwave where his boss would see it, and started to make the coffee, humming Good King Wenceslaus under his breath in honour of the day.

He checked the magazines lying on the conference room table. They were the three most recent issues of the Medical Journal of Australia, which Dr. Cuddy had thoughtfully added to the Department's subscriptions when he was hired. The mail girls put the rest of the medical journals in House's inner office, but the MJA they considered to be Chase's, so left it out here for him. The magazines were shipped by boat, so he might get none for a month or more, then several together.

He served himself coffee, selected several likely bikkies, then settled down to read until House arrived.

Chase was deep into an article describing fulminant hepatic failure from herpes simplex in pregnancy when his boss arrived.

"Something interesting?" he asked his fellow, simultaneously moving to the kitchen area for his coffee.

The younger man shrugged. "A woman died of liver and renal failure due to an HSV infection acquired during pregnancy. You can read it if you'd like."

"Leave it on my desk when you're done… where'd these cookies come from?"

"Connecticut. I told you I was going. Help yourself."

House chose a few cookies and brought them to the table with his coffee. "How was your holiday?" he asked.

"Good," Chase replied.

"Where there a lot of people there?"

Chase counted in his head. "Nine."

"What did they give you to eat?"

Before Thanksgiving, Chase would have wondered where his boss was going with these questions, but after Thanksgiving, he'd overheard variations of this conversation all over the hospital, in the lobby, cafeteria, and clinic: where did you go, who was there, what did you eat. He assumed it was the American custom to retail one's experience of the holiday to one's workmates and was only too happy be able to participate.

"Umm, we had some kind of fizzy champagne-type drink as a cocktail with a sort of soft orange cheese ball that had been rolled in chopped nuts to spread on crackers, plus cold shrimp as hors d'oeuvres. Main course was meat and three veg: a ham joint roasted bone-in garnished with pineapple rings, a big dish of that green bean and mushroom in white sauce stuff, a sort of corn pudding, and a platter of orange mash with lots of brown sugar, cinnamon, and marshmallows." He looked thoughtful. "The marshmallows got brown, but they didn't actually melt. What's up with that? Also, little sort-of croissants, but strangely they gave us butter for them anyway. Everything tasted great."

"Did you play any games?"

"No." Chase shook his head for emphasis. "Not unless you count searching for a pickle-shaped ornament on the tree as a game. No charades for these people. They did make a big production number out of opening prezzies though. Everybody sat in a big circle, and only one person could open a present at a time, with everybody else watching, then the next person took their turn. Took nearly two hours."

House looked at Chase's wrist, which sported a Paneri Luminor GMT Regatta that House had never seen before, and asked, "Your girlfriend give you that watch?"

Chase smiled shyly. "Yeah."

"What did you get her?"

"Jewelry: ring, earrings, and necklace. Natural fire citrines. They're sort of a dull red colour, instead of tawny."

"The watch must have cost more."

"Probably, yeah," Chase admitted.

House nodded thoughtfully. "What other Christmas presents did you get?"

To the older doctor's surprise, his fellow's pale face flushed redder than the citrines he'd given to his girlfriend. "I'm sorry, I'm talking too much." Chase got up hastily to get more coffee by way of covering what was obviously intense embarrassment. "You want more coffee?" he offered.

House stared at him. "What's wrong with you?" He lifted his red mug to show he wanted a refill, and Chase came over to serve him exactly as a waiter might have. The young man looked as if he had been accused of something not merely inexcusable, but also unmentionable in polite company. House thought about it. Was it the idea that the present his girlfriend gave him was more expensive than the one he gave her? But he hadn't reacted to that, particularly. It was only when he'd been asked about other presents. Had he been given something embarrassing? If so, House needed to know.

As the younger doctor set the carafe back in the machine, House said mildly. "Was there something… unusual about your other presents, that makes you ashamed to tell me?"

Chase turned to stare at him, incredulous. "You—you want me to tell you about them?"

Was he insane? "I am ASKING you to tell me about them!" House yelled.

Chase sat down again, laughing now, but still embarrassed. "Sorry." He looked up at his boss and smiled a little. "At home, if someone wants to indicate they think you're boasting too much about what you've gotten, they'll say it just like that: 'What other Christmas presents did you get?'"

House was flabbergasted. "Your people say 'tell me about X' to mean 'shut up about X'?"

Chase chuckled. "Yeah, it can get confusing."

"No wonder you're such an idiot. When I say 'tell me about X', I mean 'tell me about X'."

A dimple deepened in a cheek from which the painful blush had faded. "Understood."

House waited, and when Chase said nothing else, prompted, "So what other Christmas presents did you get?"

"Um, there was an old lady there who gave us each a little box with four pieces of chocolate candy in it."

"You ate those, I take it?"

Chase smiled at his greedy boss. "Yeah, sorry. The old lady was funny, too. She races dogs, and she was telling us she'd gotten this new whippet who refused to race. Said she'd started her three times, but the dog wouldn't chase the bag at all, just wandered off the track looking for a treat and a cuddle."

"What else?"

"Um, the hostess gave me a gift set with a bottle of bourbon and four old fashioned glasses. I'd brought her two bottles of Australian shiraz."

"What brand of bourbon?"

"Kentucky Tavern."

"That it?"

"Her daughter gave me a cribbage set: board, pegs, two decks of cards."

"Do you play cribbage?"

"Yeah. I didn't have a set though. Not since before I went to sem—uni."

"Anything else?"

He smiled. "A lady gave me a jar of Vegemite."

Huh? "Was she Australian?"

"No, American. They were all Americans there."

"You must have tons of the stuff already."

"No," Chase said. "I was out. I hadn't had any for almost two months. You can't just walk into any shop and buy it in this country. I've tried. I dunno where she got it."

"But you're full of it now?"

The Aussie grinned. "Yeah, I'm full of vim and Vegemite today."

They drank their coffee and ate their cookies companionably for a few minutes. "I like these ones with the hundreds and thousands on them," Chase remarked.

House looked at the cookie in his fellow's hand. "We call those little colored candies 'sprinkles'."

Chase nodded. "How was it at your Aunt Sarah's?"

The temperature in the bright room dropped ten degrees.

"Who told you I was going to my Aunt Sarah's?" House demanded angrily.

"C—Cuddy," Chase stuttered, dismayed.

"It's no business of hers or yours."

Chase didn't know what else to say, what might be safe. He'd thought he was supposed to ask about his boss' holiday, but apparently not. He would have gone back to reading his article, but House was not reading anything; it seemed rude to ignore him. Chase bit his lip. "What—" he cleared his throat. "What are we doing today?"

House exhaled. "What did you find out about FOP? Did you write it down or do you just want to tell me?"

"FOP?" Chase repeated blankly. "I don't know what you mean."

"Like fun you don't."

"I don't."

"Where's your diary?"

"My diary?"

House rolled his eyes. "Your book, where you write down what you're supposed to do?"

Bewildered, Chase fumbled it out of his pocket and handed it over.

House opened it to the page where the neat handwriting stopped. Two lines down, a very different hand had written: Explicate Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP).

Chase, from across the table, stared at the upside down words. "I didn't write that."

House gave a heavy, put-upon sigh. "I know that, moron. I wrote it. I want to know what you've done about it."

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" House's voice challenged smoothly.

Don't panic. "I never saw it," Chase explained. Sore it, it sounded like in the young man's Aussie twang. "When did you write that?"

"Day before yesterday."

"We were off," Chase stated carefully.

"No, we were off yesterday, not the day before."

"I—I didn't look at it, I—I thought we were done."

"You mean you didn't feel like looking it up."

"No, I—"

"You know what happens when my underlings lie to me?"

If Chase had been red before, all trace of color had gone now, except the huge green eyes. "I'm not lying," he whispered.

House was writing something else in the book. "I don't believe you." His voice came out in a kind of terrible sing-song. He pushed the book back across the table. "Can you see this?" Underneath 'Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva' he'd written 'Lynch syndrome'.

"Yes, I see it." House took the book back to write something else, then pushed it back towards Chase. "How about this?"

'Babesiosis' the next line read.

Chase loosed a shaky breath, thinking about something Wilson had told him. "Is this supposed to teach me a lesson?"

House smiled happily. "Why yes."

"What lesson?"

"Not to lie to me."

"I haven't lied to you."

House wrote again. 'Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH)'

"That's not fair," Chase objected.

House looked at him pityingly for a moment. "You're right," he agreed. "The hole's not deep enough yet. Keep digging."

Chase just looked frustrated. "Of course, I'm here to learn anything you want to teach me, but—"

'Scleroderma', House wrote.

"They do whole conferences on scleroderma, that could take—"

"You resent my telling you to look these conditions up, don't you?"

Chase was silent.

"Don't you?" House insisted.

He wasn't supposed to lie. "Yes."

House shook his head. "See, now that was one of the times when you should have lied." 'POEMS syndrome' was added to the list.

"You said you were teaching me not to lie!"

"My bad. I guess it's more of a lesson on when to lie and when to tell the truth. Or anyway not to defy me. Ever."

Chase opened his mouth with the idea of claiming he hadn't defied House, but paused, mouth open.

House waited, pen poised. "Lots more ink in this pen," he informed his fellow in cheerful mock encouragement.

Stop resisting. Just breathe. After about ten seconds, Chase said calmly, "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay. What—" the young man swallowed. "What information do you want?"

"Are you stupid?" House asked.

Chase blinked a few times, but didn't answer, deducing that no answer would be found acceptable.

House eyed him suspiciously. "Diagnosis, usual symptoms, any unusual presentations, confirmatory signs, treatment, prognosis. You went to med school, right?"

"Yeah," Chase breathed. "I went to med school."

"Are you going to whine to Cuddy that I'm being mean to you?"

Chase shook his head. "No, it's not a problem. You're the boss."

House got up and pulled three huge reference books off the shelves to set on the table by his fellow. "Try these first. If anything's missing, it may be in some other book here." He waved towards the bookcases to indicate Chase had the run of the place, then pulled a legal pad from a nearby shelf. "Write your answers on here. No sense filling up your whole book." He dropped the pad on the glass tabletop in front of his fellow. "I want that on my desk before you leave tonight. Write the time you finish at the end, and make sure to leave through the front doors, 'cause I'll be checking the security tape to make sure you're not lying to me."

Chase's eyes were on the pad on the table, his voice soft. "You don't trust me."

House shrugged. "Trust, but verify." He headed towards his office, then turned back. "Oh, and if it's not finished and on my desk in the morning, I'm going to lock you in my office with those books tomorrow until you're done."

Chase was staring at him.

House winked, then walked through the glass door into his private office.