Disclaimer: I don't own any of these people nor would I really want to. They seem like a lot of trouble and doctors always have such huge egos. :)
Conflict 2
Chase felt tired and shaky after the adrenaline rush of saving the patient. Allergic reactions happened so quickly that there was never time to do anything more than react. No time to think or analyze, just get the patient stable enough for a specialist. And Chase had done that. No easy feat with Foreman getting in his way and the staff unsure who to listen to. Foreman was bigger, louder, and more assertive than Chase but the ICU staff was more used to working with him. Somehow, they had managed to work together long enough to stabilize the kid and then Foreman had laid into him.
The first part of the rant had been rather loud so Chase had politely asked that they move out of the ICU because loud noises were discouraged in there. He had assumed, wrongly so, that Foreman would go back to their conference room, not continue to read him the riot act in the middle of the hallway. Oh well. He hummed a little tune in his head and pretended to listen to the big, black man rant.
It was a defense mechanism he had learned long, long ago. If he didn't listen to what people yelled at him then it couldn't hurt his feelings. His father wasn't much of a yeller, unless he was tanked, but Mum, now she had a temper. One minute she would be screaming and the next telling him how much she loved him. It used to make him dizzy. Maybe that was why House didn't much faze him. House was like the family Chase light.
He moved from a stupid tune to mentally reciting the Rosary in as many languages as he could remember. English and Latin he knew backwards and forwards they were too easy. Czech, Afrikaans, and Dutch he remembered well. Spanish, French, and Italian were a bit tougher but he thought he got most of it right. Greek, now there was a tough one. He got tripped up after the Hail Mary. He chewed on the inside of his lip in thought.
It was on the tip of his mental tongue when Foreman shouted, "you better start sucking House's dick if you intend to keep your job after this screw up, junior."
Chase coldly asked permission to return to the patient then re entered the ICU. He knew Foreman wouldn't follow him. This wasn't Foreman's place, but Chase's. He looked down at the 10 year old boy and noted his vitals. Pulse was up and so was blood pressure, but that could easily be explained from the epi shots. He told the nurse to monitor the patient closely and check vitals every 15 minutes for the next 2 hours and to page him if anything changed.
He then slunk out of the door and tried not to look at the family glaring at him in the corner. Why had Foreman chosen to yell at him in front of the patient's family? They would probably ask to have him removed from the case, which Foreman would just love even though it was his fault this happened. He headed towards the stairs and the diagnostics department conference room when he hesitated for a moment. Foreman might go there and Foreman was the last person he wanted to see. So he did an about face and headed towards the clinic. He wasn't likely to run into anyone from his department there.
"Chase." Wilson called after him as he saw him pass. Big hearted Jimmy felt he needed to assure himself that Chase was alright after the fight.
"Yes, Dr. Wilson." Chase stopped and turned around, not exactly meeting Wilson's eyes. He was still a bit off balance after Foreman and Wilson was way too kind and caring for him to be around right now. It was hard to keep up his defenses when faced with someone as nice as Wilson could be. He never, ever, had the spontaneous urge to open up to mean old House like he sometimes did with Wilson. Though, oddly enough the few times he had opened up had been around House but those had usually been more from anger and being completely worn down with House's constant machinations and scrutiny.
Wilson looked at the younger doctor for a moment. He looked tired and beaten down. Not surprising, Cameron had a cold and couldn't stay with the patient last night so Chase had. And then the fight with Foreman must have been a bit mentally draining. Part of him wanted to shake the younger doctor and tell him to go back and yell at Foreman, while another part wanted to give him a brotherly hug. But the third part won out and he said. "Do you want to go get some lunch?"
Wilson hadn't started out liking Chase, in fact he really disliked him. Chase was another good looking, younger doctor that House was taking an interest in. But he hadn't worried. Most of House's fellows didn't last more than a month. But a month then two when by and Chase was still there so he had decided to dig deeper. He remembered Chase's first face to face interview. When House had mentioned Rowan's phone call, Wilson had pondered over the twin looks of anger and betrayal thinly veiled by his Aussie no worries attitude.
But eventually Wilson had gotten used to him, and then started to like him. Chase had a wicked sense of humour that leaned strongly towards the dry British variety. He could snark and snipe right along with House and Wilson and never miss a beat even if his statements were sometimes esoteric. Then of course there was the fun of playing on his unfamiliarity with American pop culture. It had taken him two weeks to figure out why people kept calling him Doogie.
Even after the other ducklings were hired, Chase remained Wilson's favourite to hang out with. Cameron was too high maintenance and Foreman was too prickly. Maybe he just needed to get to know them better. But then Chase had done the unforgivable and ratted out House to Volger. Wilson had been livid. But what he couldn't understand at the time was why House hadn't been angry. It had taken half a bottle of bourbon and a night on House's couch for him to figure it out.
Some time ago.
Wilson sipped at his drink, already tipsy and realizing that there was no way he could drive home. He kicked off his shoes and wiggled his toes. "So when are you going to axe Benedict Arnold?"
"I thought we was already dead unless you found some way to raise the dead and force them to work for you, evil little minx."
"I meant Chase."
"I'm not." House answered nonchalantly.
"Why not, he ratted you out. He turned on you like an ex wife."
"Yeah, but he has a better ass than most of your ex wives and is actually a natural blonde to boot."
"Far beside the point."
"He didn't do anything Foreman hasn't done before."
"Foreman didn't run to Volger but Cuddy."
"She was in charge at the time."
"Huge difference, no one's job was in danger when Foreman talked to Cuddy. And that was based on concern for a patient. Chase did it out of spite and selfish desire to keep his job."
"Let's say maybe I deserved it."
"I doubt you deserved it."
"Believe it or not Jimmy, sometimes I am less than nice to people." House looked wide eyed at his friend.
"I never noticed. But unless you dug up his mother's corpse and had sex with her on his bed, I can't see that you could have done anything that would warrant his behaviour."
"I came close. Besides, have you seen pictures of her, what a babe. I bet he had lots of friends coming over to his house after school for cookies and fantasies."
"I'm sure he did. But stop changing the subject, what did you do?"
"I may have, sort of, well, messed with his head a little bit."
"How?
"Just a teeny little bit. Nothing major."
"How?"
"Not important."
"Very important."
"Ok, I sort of told him I didn't care about him and purposely tried to make him flip out and when he did, I sort of got mad at him about it and was even meaner to him and then I felt." House paused here and looked up. "What is that emotion that is the opposite of self-satisfied?"
"You mean guilty?" Wilson supplied.
"Maybe not that far, but we'll use that word for now."
"That's it? That's nothing worse than you have done to other people."
"Yeah, but I threatened him right where he lives. I knew I was doing it but kept doing it just to make him squirm because I thought it was fun and because I thought he needed to be taught a lesson. I enjoyed watching him melt down when Rowan was here because I didn't realize just how screwed up things were between them. And even after I found out I still kept doing it just because I thought it might help. But in the end all I did was make things a whole lot worse."
"I knew about that. But I thought he said he didn't care about his father."
"Yeah, his lame little speech about not caring? I'm not sure if that was to convince me or himself. Anyway afterwards, I got kind of drunk and was feeling, that word you used."
"Guilty." Wilson deadpanned.
"Yeah. And I went over to his apartment. While I was there I sort of said some nasty things to him and sort of told him that I didn't believe him and made him cry a little bit."
"You went to his apartment and made him cry?"
"Only a little, but man does he hold grudges."
"I don't blame him. What did you say to him?"
"Now that really isn't important. Besides, I'm not sure I remember. Anyway, a few days later, he screws up the angio and I read him the riot act."
"He deserved it, he screwed up."
"He didn't even want to be there that day. I made him come to work even though he called in sick."
"I still don't see how this vindicates him. He should be used to you by now."
"Damn it, you have read the kid's psych profile. I totally handled things the wrong way and he freaked."
"It isn't your job to hold their hands." Wilson paused for a moment. "I can not believe I just said that to you. Am I still awake?" House threw an ice cube at him, hitting Wilson squarely between the eyes. "I'm awake alright."
"I know it isn't. But I held him over a Bunsen burner for too long and I really shouldn't be surprised he melted down."
"So you're not mad at him?"
"Hell yes I am mad at him. But I'm not going to fire him just because I am mad at him. Let's just say that I deserved what he did to me and he deserves what I am doing to him. Soon we will be back to our dysfunctional little selves and everything will be coming up roses." What House hadn't wanted to admit, even to Wilson, was how much it hurt that Chase had betrayed him. Oh, he realized it made sense. He knocked Chase down and then kicked dirt on him like he did to everyone. It was how he dealt with things, pushing people away when he felt too much. So he really wasn't surprised when Chase stabbed him in the back as soon as he turned around because that was how Chase dealt with things. It was a little dance they had been doing for months, this was just the most drastic it had become. He almost got the idea that Chase was taunting him so that he would fire the younger doctor so that Chase could run away like he always did. They were a sad, sad pair and House wouldn't trade him for all the Foremans or Camerons in the world.
"Ok, but I would fire him."
Present.
After he had woken up the next morning, Wilson had thought about it. He realized that Chase had seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown the entire time his father had been there and for weeks afterwards had been jumpy, peevish, and distracted. House had been right, he had pushed too hard and in typical passive aggressive form, Chase had pushed back. But unlike House, Wilson wasn't convinced that anger had been the only motive. He figured that deep down, their own little walking, talking, Aussie abandonment issue had wigged out at the thought of anything threatening his security.
Most people would assume that Foreman and House were the most alike. They were both smart, pompous, holier than thou, and stubborn. But those were only surface traits, deep down Chase and House were far more similar. Both of them fully utilized the same defense mechanisms to protect themselves. They kept people at arms' length as a way of keeping emotional control over a given situation. But it was when they lost control that they were different. House would be mean and push the other person away, like he had done to Cameron when she got too close. But Chase didn't normally have the heart to be that mean, so he ran away.
When Rowan had shown up, both men quickly lost control of the situation. When House found out about how sick Rowan was, and was faced with loosing Chase, he became mean and hurtful towards his intensivist because he finally figured out how much he cared. While Chase felt betrayed by House's manipulations and ran away from him to the first person he could find, Volger. It was all very complicated and he doubted even Chase knew why he had turned on House.
However, once Wilson had thought through all of this, it wasn't hard for him to forgive Chase. Besides, once you got past Chase's contrived laid back attitude and his stand offish streak and his secretive nature, he wasn't such a bad guy. He was no worse than House any way. And Chase had never called his wife a "heifer" to her face like House had.
Chase looked down at his watch and realized it was almost 1:30 and he hadn't eaten since 6 am. "Sure." Chase shrugged and followed the oncologist towards the stairs.
Once seated, Wilson watched Chase mix his pasta up with peas, vinegar, and olive oil. It looked much better than the runny, red sauce he had on his. The cafeteria had started keeping a small container of vinegar around just for Chase after he started working here. He tended to use it quite frequently.
"So tell me about that fight with Foreman." Wilson moved right in. If he let Chase control the conversation it would be 6 months before he ever brought it up.
"What about it?" The Aussie dodged the question by postulating one of his own.
"What happened? Why was Foreman yelling in the middle of the hallway?" Wilson watched Robert push a piece of pasta around his plate, refusing to make eye contact. "You know I will find out eventually and maybe I can help smooth things over with House if you tell me what you did wrong."
"Why do you automatically assume I did something wrong?" Chase asked.
Wilson swallowed whatever he was going to say. Why did he assume Chase was the one who screwed up? "Maybe because Foreman was yelling at you and not the other way around." It was a lame response and Wilson knew it.
"I don't yell at people, you know that." Chase put his fork down giving up all pretense of eating after only picking at his food.
"I know, just tell me what happened."
"What difference does it make?"
"Chase," Wilson said firmly. "I am on the board of directors and I have right to know why two doctors are quarrelling in the middle of the hallway like grammar school kids."
"The patient went into anaphylactic shock. We got it under control. Foreman was angry it happened." Chase only gave the barest facts.
"What caused it?"
"Iodine in the contrast." Chase pronounced it Iodeen.
"Shellfish allergy?" Wilson questioned and Chase shook his head in the affirmative. "That is a pretty severe allergy to have ignored."
"I didn't ignore it. It wasn't in the history or the allergy chart."
"Who took the history?"
"Foreman, he forgot to put it in the record."
"Why didn't you tell him?" Wilson decided he would check, just to make sure that Foreman had forgotten it. That was a pretty severe breach of protocol, if so.
"He didn't give me much of a chance, besides, he'll find out eventually."
"But you could have stood up for yourself and pointed out he was wrong."
"Why bother, he wouldn't have listened." Chase glumly stared into his drink.
"Then you should have at least taken a swing at him for that last comment, how rude was that?" Wilson tried to lighten the mood.
"He would have just hit me back and I have grown rather fond of having all my features facing front."
"I guess. But you could have stood up for scrawny, little white boys everywhere."
"Let someone else be your hero, I have no liberal guilt over slavery."
Wilson giggled at that and let the rest of the time pass by amicably. Soon Chase returned to check on the patient and split his time between the ICU and the clinic in hopes of avoiding his colleagues. It worked well but by the end of the day he was exhausted. He was so tired he took the elevator back up to collect his things. He was not looking forward to his 8 kilometer, he still had problems thinking in miles, bike ride home. When he reached the doors he saw that Cameron was leaving.
"Chase." She nodded politely.
"Cameron." He echoed her cool, professional greeting. Maybe once, they could have been friends but now they were just colleagues. He looked around and noticed that Foreman's things were packed. "Where is Foreman?"
"I don't know, he was on his way out I think." She said as she pulled her gloves on.
"But someone has to stay on call."
"Well I can't do it." She sniffled for effect.
"Never mind, I guess I'll do it." Chase turned around sharply and headed back towards the ICU.
"Chase, wait." He stopped but didn't turn around.
"I'm sure Foreman didn't mean what he said earlier. He just cares so much about the patients. The fact that you endangered one really bothered him. He will forgive you soon."
"Good of him."
"Really, Chase, Foreman is just trying to look out for all of us. When one of us messes up it makes the whole department look bad." She tried to appease. She reached a hand out but Chase's tensing caused her to drop her hand, aborting the attempt like she always did. She had no right to touch him and one day she would learn that.
"You mean it makes him look bad and we can't have that. Foreman doesn't care about anything but his reputation."
"That's not very nice. Eric is a good person and a good doctor. You should be nicer to him. You could learn a lot from him."
"Like how to take a proper history?" He still hadn't turned around but he could see her reflection in the glass door. She was getting annoyed, which vaguely pleased him.
"Among other things. You really need to stop taking things so personally. He was angry. He didn't mean it. It will all be forgotten by tomorrow. Or maybe tonight if you apologize and tell him you are sorry. We'll all talk to House for you. He won't be that mad. I'm sure I can talk him out of doing anything drastic, even Foreman will help." She spoke softly, trying her best to console him.
"I really don't think that is necessary. And maybe Foreman should spend less time worrying about smoothing things over for me and more time paying attention. Because if he did, he might have noticed that he screwed up and I didn't." Chase spat out. He was tired and in no mood for Cameron's well meaning meddling. He walked away before she could say anything else.
Bloody Foreman telling people that he had screwed up! Bastard! And the fact that everyone believed him. He seethed as he took the stairs two at a time. Rage was lending him energy. And when House got back tomorrow, he would agree with Foreman without ever looking at the chart. He started to grind his teeth in frustration and had to consciously relax his jaw enough to force a pen between his molars. Left side this time since it was after lunch. He could already feel a pretty bad headache starting at his temples.
He reached the ICU doors and walked in, taking his stethoscope out of his pocket and putting his around his neck. He smiled at the new nurse at the nurses' station. It must be after six because they had changed since the last time he came up here.
"Good evening Dr. Chase." She smiled shyly back. She was pale and over weight. So not his type it wasn't funny, but he pleasantly smiled back.
"How is my kid doing?" He leaned over the counter to look at the monitors.
"Fine, Dr. Chase." She made cow eyes at him.
Ok, he was going to go nuts if he had to put up with this all night. She was new; this was only her second week here. Soon she would get over it or he would ask to have her transferred. One or the other, but he really shouldn't have to put up with this from his nurses. Maybe he should just kiss Foreman in the hallway and make everyone think they were both gay. That would solve his nurse problem and get back at the bastard. He pondered as he walked back to the lounge, saying over his shoulder. "Page me if anything changes."
The ICU lounge was the crumbiest lounge in the hospital. They didn't even have TV. It was, in fact, two cots stuffed in the corner of a locker room. Mostly this was due to the ICU only having its own doctors for a little over a year now. Before hand, other attendings cared for their own patients in the ICU, rather than having trained intensivists becoming attendings or consults on critical patients. Chase didn't mind though because it was quiet and out of the way. No one would bother him here.
He walked in and saw Dr. Hope Gardner, collapsed on a cot, her arm thrown over her face. She looked pale. "Hey, Hope, you ok?" He asked.
"No." She croaked without moving.
"Morning sickness again?" He questioned around the pen he had stuffed back in his mouth. Dr. Gardner was pregnant with twins and suffering for it.
"Yup." She looked pitiful. "By the way, what are you still doing here? I thought you were sprung for the night." She slowly sat up and looked at him in the dim light.
"I was, but then my springer decided he would rather go home instead." He shrugged then added. "I'll be here till at least 6 am. If you want to go home, I'll cover your shift for you." He didn't mind, Dr. Gardner was nice to him. She always brought him left over from her holiday meals. She was a great cook, which was all the better for her because she was frighteningly ugly and he couldn't imagine what else her husband might have seen in her at first. But, then again, her husband was just as much of a disproportionate circus freak as she was. He feared for their children.
"Really? You don't mind?" She perked up.
"Naw. I don't. Why should we both be stuck here? Go home, put your feet up, eat crackers, drink ginger ale. Whatever makes you feel better." He smiled at her.
"Thank you." She slid herself to the end of her cot and pulled out her coat and gloves. "There are no new patients so hopefully nothing too exciting." She pulled her coat on and slowly rose. She LOVED Dr. Chase. He was the nicest doctor there and pretty to look at. She couldn't believe that he was actually part of bastard House's department. He always worked holidays so all the other doctors could stay home with their families. He was the not merely the only single doctor rotating in the Anesthesia and ICU department but the only one with no kids. She had heard from the nurses what had happened earlier and she was mad. How dare some stuck up neurologist come into their ICU and tell them how to run it. The nerve! She would have to remember to bring Chase some dinner soon.
"Hope you feel better, luv." He called as she left. He then pulled down all the charts and scanned through them quickly. Nope, nothing new, since he had been here three hours ago.
He put the charts up and leaned lied down on the thin cot with his hands behind his head. He could still hear the noises from the ward and the quiet clicking of the nurse's playing solitary on their computers. Now that he was mostly alone and relaxed he thought about Foreman and felt his jaw muscles clenching again. What did he know about Foreman? Foreman was smart. House respected him. He was a very good doctor. He was a pompous ass. He had a superiority complex. He didn't like Chase. He was from California somewhere. He was dating a fat drug rep. He liked to confront people.
Those were the obvious things, but then there were other things that Chase had divined about his fellow duckling. Like that Foreman hadn't grown up with money. His things were far too ostentatious and gaudy for someone with refined taste. He bought an expensive car and lived in a big flat to impress people. But he skimped on luxury items like belts and shoes. Chase's mother had always told him that there were three sure signs of money, bed linens, shoes, and table settings. The logic being that someone who wasn't raised around other rich snobs wouldn't know there was $1,000 sheets for sale or that a cordial set could cost $3,000.
He disagreed with Cameron about Foreman caring about patients that was her schick. Foreman was a typical neurologist. He was pompous, high handed, and used patients to prove how smart he was. After all you could tell a lot about at doctor's personality by their specialty. Plastic surgeons were vain and money hungry. ER doctors liked a thrill but had short attention spans. Surgeons usually had god complexes. Neurologists wanted everyone to see how smart they were. Immunologists liked to help people feel better. Infectious disease specialists liked puzzles. So, what about intensivists, he thought? Well, maybe they just liked peace and quiet. No, those were pathologists.
No, he didn't think that Foreman cared any more than House did. As to say that Foreman cared on a conceptual level about the patients but on a personal level he couldn't care less. Solving the case and helping them was just a way to show how great he is. If he got it right then the other ducklings never heard the end of it. If he got it wrong it was just one of the many wrong choices they all made. Bloody bullocks was what it was.
He could also tell that Foreman was close to his family. He was always going to visit them every chance he got. He had some how managed to only work one holiday while Chase had worked every single one. He talked frequently about his parents and his grand mother. Foreman and Cameron often shared tales of crisp Christmas mornings and chilly Thanksgivings. The one time they had managed to draw Chase into the discussion, he had pointed out that Christmas was hot in Australia and that he was usually at Mass at midnight and slept in late Christmas morning. And they didn't celebrate Thanksgiving because Aussies didn't give a rat's ass about American history. Neither of them had any frame of reference for that.
He rolled over onto his side and sighed. He didn't like thinking about his family, so he continued thinking about his troublesome colleague. Foreman got along well with Cameron. She seemed to respond to his authority and natural presence. Foreman was a leader, Cameron was a follower. It worked well. But what was Chase? He certainly didn't want to be a leader all the time nor did he want to constantly be told what to do by others. Why were things so damn complicated?
Dealing with them was such a pain in the ass sometimes. Everything with Foreman was a fight, but everything with Cameron was a self effacing guilt trip. Sometimes he just wanted to get on a plane and leave. Go somewhere quiet and be a nameless doctor in the middle of the rain forest. But he never did it, at least not since he had gotten back from Africa. Someplace away from Foreman's scorn and Cameron's insecurity would be nice. How could they both be so different but so darned annoying?
When his father had been here, was the perfect example of how bad they both could be to deal with. Cameron had cornered him and tried to be all touchy feely with him. And when that failed she had simply told him how he should feel and then said he was a wrong for not feeling the same way. Then she had the nerve to get pouty when he told her to bugger off. She was usually like that about things, if you didn't agree with her you were not just wrong but a bloody, heartless monster.
Then there had been Foreman. Much like House and Cameron he had noticed the chill between the doctors Chase and was trying to puzzle it out. He had been his usual direct self about it. He had asked Chase what was up and Chase had ignored him. He had asked again and Chase dodged the question. When he had asked a third time, Chase had simply walked away while Foreman had still been talking. After that Foreman had finally given up.
That had been a wretched time for him. After his father had left House had come over and picked at him and picked at him until he cracked. House had been like a sculptor trying to chisel the perfect features, only to find that a fault ran just below the surface. When he had applied too much pressure the stone completely crumbled. Words had been exchanged, mean things were said, accusations were made, and at the end Chase had embarrassingly ended up in tears.
For the next few weeks he had been blisteringly mad at House. How dare that man presume to think that Chase's personal life was his business? How dare any of them think that he needed them? He had pushed them all away, one way or another. However, the sad part was that he wanted nothing more than to have someone to talk to. He had called the closest thing he had to a best friend, she hadn't answered. He hadn't expected her to.
Then he had gone out and found a woman. He didn't volunteer his name and she didn't ask. She was married, he had seen the ring in her purse, and he was broken. Neither wanted commitment just affection. It made him feel better, for a little while, just to have the warmth of another person near him even if it is only for physical pleasure. It made the icy lump that lived in side of him warm for a bit. Sometimes the lump would shrink, like when he was at work and too busy to think about it or when he was with someone he cared about. But sometimes it would get so big and so cold he felt like it crushed the air out of his lungs, choking him with its weight. He felt that way after his father said he couldn't stay for drinks. He didn't know why. He was an adult, it shouldn't bother him but it did. He had gone back to his car and spent twenty minutes trying not to cry. But the lump he could live with, it was the dragon he was afraid of.
There had been other women too. All nameless, faceless woman who didn't care any more for him then he did for them. He just wanted the touch and the warmth. Bless him father, for he had sinned, but he didn't care because it made him feel better and some times better was all you can hope for. Why wasn't there a Commandment saying that mothers and fathers had to honor thy children?
Chase rolled over onto his back again and tried to relax his jaw to arrest his progressing headache and his train of thought. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his pills. He dry swallowed one like House always did. These were his pain killers, no less needed than House's but much more socially acceptable. It was an anti-depressant. House took pills to quiet a pain in his leg that never went away and Chase took pills to stop a pain in his soul that never went away. Maybe that was why he was more accepting of House's drug addiction than the others. Or maybe he was just so used to being around addicts that House just didn't even register half the time.
No one knew he took them accept Cuddy and Wilson. He guessed maybe House knew, but thus far House hadn't used it against him so maybe he didn't. He had started taking them 8 years ago after he tried to kill himself. He had been 18 years old, top in his med school class, starting to grow into his looks, and rich. But nothing ever got rid of the crushing blue, black despair in side him. It was like a dragon, eating away his soul. He tried to run from it but it always found him.
He remembered it was a Friday. He had been trying to call his father for two weeks to ask if he could come visit him for a few weeks during their break. But his father hadn't returned any of his calls. Not that he should be surprised. Rowan hadn't talked to him in nearly two years, not since he had sobbingly told him about the circumstances surrounding his mother's death. The day after he and his father had talked about it, Rowan had arranged for Robert to return to Sydney and go back to school. His father still hadn't forgiven him for not doing a better job of taking care of his mother.
He had given up at 4:30 and driven down to his mother's beach house on Bondi. It was the off season so there weren't too many tourists around. He had then proceeded to take an entire bottle of Demeral and several shots of scotch. He should have died, he really should have, but the housekeeper had been late coming to water the plants and found him. She had called an ambulance and the ER team had saved him, barely.
He had woken up alone in a hospital bed and his first thought was that he couldn't even kill himself right. The staff had sent in several people to talk to him but he had turned them all away. He refused to even give a next of kin. But they had figured it out and the next day his father had shown up. Not a word had been spoken as he walked Robert out of the hospital to the car. He had still been dizzy and felt like he had eaten batteries. He had gone in the back seat so he could lie down and curl around his stomach and the whole drive back to Melbourne his father hadn't spoken to him.
He dozed in and out during the trip, only registering that it had started to rain and he was cold. He had almost asked if he could have his father's discarded trench coat, which occupied the front seat. But the hard look in Rowan's eyes made him hold his tongue so he curled into a tighter ball and tried to stop shaking.
When they had reached Rowan's house, the house Robert had grown up in, his father had taken him by the arm and guided him into the study. He had almost bodily shoved him into an over stuffed leather couch. The room smelled of tobacco and wood oil. This house was all old with wood paneling and soft warm colors, not like his mother's, no his house, in Sydney. That house was all concrete and cold angles. But the warmth was doing nothing to stop him from shivering. He couldn't look up to make eye contact with his father. He didn't want to see the disappointment and anger so he closed his eyes.
Then his father began to yell at him, which itself was an oddity. Rowan never yelled at Robert, because that would have meant that he paid attention to him or cared enough about him to yell. Rowan used to yell at his wife, but not his son. His son wasn't important enough for strong emotions. The rant was long, consisting mostly of how selfish he was, what an ingrate, what would the medical community think of him, what was wrong with him, what was he thinking, did he just want attention, and so on. He closed his eyes and tried to stop tears from falling past his long lashes. It didn't work.
Then there had been the slap, hard and fast on his left cheek. He had looked up then. His father had never hit him before. He was too stunned to do anything as he looked up into his father's angry face. His father had asked one question, why? Robert tried to verbalize the feeling of having a gnashing dragon of depression eating away at his heart and soul every day. How it felt to wake up in an empty house and eat alone every day. How the reminders of his mother all over the house made him want to weep every time he saw them. How he couldn't help wondering all day, every day, almost to the exclusion of all else, that maybe he shouldn't have let them cut off his mother's life support, that maybe he really had been a murder.
Rowan had listened to what he could understand, but by the end of the conversation, Robert was crying so hard he wasn't making sense. Rowan didn't hold him or tell him it was alright. He watched him like a specimen in Petrie dish. By the end Robert was draped over the arm of the couch with his face buried in his arms sobbing. All he could repeat was how sorry he was. Rowan had given into one brief fatherly instinct and smoothed back his son's hair, but then he left. He turned and walked out; uncomfortable with the raw emotion he was seeing. It was just another one of the many times he had failed his son. That was the one thing Cameron could never understand. That hitting wasn't the only way to hurt someone.
When Robert had woken up again, it was dark and he hadn't even realized he had fallen asleep. He was still tired and felt sick to his stomach. He pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them, wondering what to do next. Then Rowan had cleared his throat and he had nearly jumped out of his skin. His father had given him a bottle of pills and instructed him to take one, twice a day for the next three months. They had been an older generation anti-depressant and they had had some annoying side effects like anxiety, jitters, and insomnia but they helped.
He had been on different types and different dosages of anti-depressants off and on ever since then. Sometimes he quit taking them and he would be ok for a while, the dragon would sleep, but it never died. It would always wake back up and start to tear him to pieces. But now he knew what it felt like and he knew to get a script before things ever got as bad as they had been. Whenever he passed a bridge and thought about how nice it would be to throw himself off of it, he went and found a doctor.
Though the pills didn't make him normal, they did make him feel normal. Like he could smile without cracking and laugh without betraying anything. They didn't get rid of the pain, they just dulled it to a manageable level. He needed them if he were going to function at his best. Was he really any different than House?
He didn't know, he really didn't want to think about that so he switched back to thinking about Foreman. What to do about Foreman? He could ignore the situation, his personal favourite way to deal with things. He could quit and go find work somewhere else. He knew he could, intensivists were in very high demand all over the world, especially ones with his training and skill. He could go confront Foreman. Yeah right, like that was ever going to happen. He could go and talk to House. Once House saw the record he would probably even take Chase's side. Foreman had been talked to before about stepping on other doctor's toes.
When Gabe had developed breathing difficulties and intubations hadn't worked, Chase had made the call to trach him. Foreman had refused. Cuddy had made the same call, Foreman had refused. In the end, Foreman had managed to get the tube in, but that wasn't the point. They were in the ICU and Chase was the primary attending. Foreman should have backed off when he made the call. Chase hadn't complained to House, but Cuddy sure had. Foreman had been so hell bent on proving that he could do it that he had disregarded what was best for the patient, the fact that he had succeeded really didn't mitigate the circumstances.
Cameron, Chase, and Rowan had all heard House ream Foreman about his misstep. Some was for Cuddy's benefit but some was to just plain teach the Foreman's arrogant ass a lesson. Chase only wished he hadn't been so distracted so he could have paid better attention. Foreman had been somewhat sheepish afterwards and had apologized to Cuddy but not to Chase. Oh well, hell hadn't frozen over yet so he wasn't surprised.
His stomach growled and he finally got up and rummaged around the lounge. All there was to eat were granola bars, which he gladly did. They were the crunchy kind and made his jaw hurt but oh well. When he was finished he made his rounds of the ward and noted everyone was doing well. Their patient's parents and younger brother were all sound asleep around the bed.
He quietly approached the bed and checked the patient's vitals. He shined his pen light in the kid's eyes and noticed neither pupil responded, not good, fixed but not dilated. He noted it on the chart along with the time. He uncovered the boy's feet and ran the back of his metal pen the length of the soul. There was no response, again, not good. Chase ordered another 10 mils of Atropine. On his way out the boy's younger brother, Joey looked up at him with wide brown eyes. He smiled and tried to duck out, but the boy grabbed his lab coat and tugged on it. Chase reluctantly bent down.
The little boy motioned for him to lean in and whispered. "I have to go potty."
Chased looked over at the parents and noted their exhaustion and that at least the mother was clearly in REM sleep. "I'll get one of the nurses to take you."
"No, they can't go in the boy's room." Chase sighed and motioned for the little boy to follow him. Just because he was good with kids didn't mean he liked them. In fact really didn't.
They reached the boys room, and Chase helped the 4 year old out of his overalls. Why did parents put young children with questionable bladder control in overalls? He had always wondered. When the little boy was done he helped him wash his hands and was prepared to return him to his parents when Joey asked him a question. "You are the one who gave Tommy the little bear, right?" The boy made a motion with his fingers like they were the teeth of a crocodile.
"Yes, that was me." Chase produced the clippie kola bear out of his lab coat pocket. He kept it and a panda on his lapel and stethoscope for when he had to deal with children. He held it out to the boy to play with. He had about 20 of them so he didn't care what happened to this one.
"Did you do something bad? Was that why the other man was yelling at you?" The boy asked as he pet the stuffed kola shaped clip.
"Call it a difference of medical opinion, why?"
"Mommy and daddy yell at us when we do something bad."
"Do they yell a lot?" Chase crouched down to be on Joey's level.
"No, but it is bad when they do. Tommy doesn't like it."
"No one likes it but sometimes parents do it because what you did could hurt you."
"I don't want them to yell at Tommy." The little boy's eyes filled with tears.
"Why would they? Did he do something wrong? Maybe go somewhere you weren't supposed to be?"
"It was my fault, I dared him."
"Dared him to do what? I promise I won't tell your parents." Chase crossed his heart.
"We aren't supposed to go in the shed behind the apartment, but it was raining and we like to play in there. I dared him and he went in there. He even ate his lunch in there." Bells started going off in Chase's brain at this new information.
"Did you have lunch in there?"
"No, I went in side and watched TV. You aren't going to tell Mommy and Daddy are you?"
"No, I won't tell your Mum and Dad."
"She isn't mum, she's mommy." Joey corrected.
"Sorry. Where I come from it's mum."
"That's silly." The little boy pointed out. Chase smiled and led him back to his parents. Joey quickly fell back asleep but now Chase had something else to think about other than Foreman.
TBC