A/N: This chapter is much longer but a lot more happens. I think I finally found a new beta reader, but she didn't get a chance to look at this chapter, so all mistakes are mine and I blame them on poor schooling. :)
About Cameron, I don't hate her, I just hate what the writers did to her. Therefore, I tried to make her a little better in this chapter. We'll see how it works out.
Disclaimer: I don't own these people and a good thing too because I'm not very nice to them.
Sleeping Beauty
Over the next hour and a half, Chase, Cameron, and Foreman worked to stabilize the teenage boy. Just as his heart would come back into rhythm, he would seize and it would stop again. He also managed to throw up on Chase twice during their attempts to save him. Finally, the boy made it past 15 minutes with a normal heart beat and the team relaxed a bit. He was the first one they managed to bring back all morning. The bad part was that while they worked on the lad, Michael Finnley, four more patients arrived. All of them were children.
House called the team together in their conference room and began to assign tasks. It was 12:30 and Chase was starving, exhausted, and on his third shirt of the day. He flopped into the chair furthest from House and rested his head on his pillowed arms. Foreman and Cameron were talking amongst themselves, while they waited for House to address them. Chase was having a hard time thinking past food or sleep. At least he had remembered to grab a band aid for his finger. He had forgotten about it until after he had taken his gloves off and saw the combination of blood and talc mashed into a pasty mess on his finger. He had rinsed it off and covered it. It hadn't bled much, most of the blood pooled under the skin, leaving a dark splotch on the pad. The needle had clearly hit the main artery in his index finger. At least Ms. Cooper was HIV and Hep C negative. But right now that was the least of his concerns.
"Well, looks like we have something fun to play with for the day. That makes 14 cases so far, counting the three Chase let die this morning." House glanced over at his sleepy duckling in time to see Chase flip him the bird without even looking up. "We need to get the newest ones examined and tested and get as detailed of a history as possible. Princeton General will be sending over three more cases this afternoon if they are still alive." He examined his staff again quickly. Foreman had his arms crossed over his chest and his legs spread out, the picture of confidence. Cameron sat primly in her chair, looking over the newest files, dutiful as always. House had the sneaking suspicion Chase was asleep as he looked at the Aussie until House noticed that his eyes were still open. "Go grab lunch then, Cameron, start on the lab work and, Foreman, start researching what could cause this type of Meningitis and or encephalitis."
They all rose to leave and House stopped Chase. "Not you, limey, you go settle the newest patients and make sure there are beds in the ICU for the new ones arriving from PG."
"A nurse can do that." Chase pointed out. Most displeased at the idea of not getting any lunch or a nap.
"Yes, a nurse could, but I told you to do it and last time I checked you do what I tell you." He looked sternly at his youngest fellow. He thought for a moment that Chase would fight over it but he didn't. He ducked his head, gathered the files and walked out. House would have preferred to have been told off, that was all he wanted, for Chase to stand up to him and tell him that the Aussie was angry with him. But it hadn't happened yet and didn't look like it was likely to happen anytime soon. He had been waiting for months in fact and Chase rarely breathed a word of displeasure towards him but it was clear that the blonde was miserable.
Maybe that was Chase's biggest problem, that he was so afraid of being abandoned that he was afraid to tell people he was unhappy. It was a common affliction, Wilson suffered from it too, but still very annoying. House knew that Chase had grown up in a rather unpleasant home environment and had probably learned how to suck up ill treatment early. He was all for being stoic but past a certain point it just really wasn't healthy anymore. Chase needed to learn to express his displeasure in healthy ways rather than being a passive aggressive prick like he had done, when talking to Vogler.
It was cliché, but Chase was his own worst enemy. The Aussie seemed to have some innate desire to sabotage everything he tried to do. Chase had tried to show his father that he was an adult and that Rowan couldn't hurt him anymore but blew it by looking so damn upset through the whole thing. Chase wanted to keep his job but assed it up by agreeing to help Vogler. He wanted to be respected but was way to passive to ever stand up to anyone and earn their respect. It was sad really, to constantly be shooting yourself in the foot like that.
House had been floored when he found out it was Chase that had betrayed him. He would have been less shocked to walk without his limp again than to find out Chase had turned on him. But he had underestimated how much he had hurt Chase by forcing him to face his father. House sighed and propped his leg up. He hadn't realized at first, just how deeply he had wounded the Aussie. He had thought that Chase was just angry or upset in general. But soon it became clear that Chase wasn't eating, sleeping, and was screwing up at work. But what was most obvious, was that Chase now refused to deal with House at all. He was infinitely polite and professional but all the warmth and humour had fled their relationship. Even when he had messed up the angiogram, he was polite and professional, taking the blame and accepting responsibility rather than arguing it wasn't his fault like he should have.
The change hurt House more than he wanted to admit. House had spent a life time pushing people away and being just fine with it. But every so often there was that one person who he couldn't get rid of; that one person who was special and could see past his rudeness and see the person underneath. Wilson and Stacy had done it, then Chase though he hadn't made it to the level of Wilson yet. Cameron thought that she had, but she was wrong. She filled in what she wanted to see rather than what was really there. Wilson and Chase didn't try to change him, make him a better person, or tell him how to feel, they simply accepted and ignored.
For over a year, he and Chase had had a wonderful snipey friendship based on mutual respect and really sarcastic senses of humour. But House had forgotten that respect when Rowan had shown up and he had tried to force Chase into revealing things that the younger doctor hadn't wanted to. He knew there had been something there. A person didn't take a job 10,000 miles away from home in a country they had never even been to before unless they were moving for something or running away from something. House had quickly learned that Chase was a case of the latter. House had been painfully curious about what Chase was running from. So he had forced Chase's hand. He had learned much of what he wanted to know but it had also blown up in his face like an atom bomb. Things hadn't been the same between them since then. In fact, Chase hadn't been the same since then. House briefly wondered if Rowan had finally told his son he was sick.
Chase hadn't been able to tell House how upset he was but it was clear that he was devastated by House's betrayal of his trust. It really shouldn't have surprised House when Chase turned on him but damned if weren't. That was when the fun had really started. House wasn't going to fire the Aussie that was the whole point of not telling him about his father, because he didn't want Chase to leave. But he certainly wasn't going to let him get away with what he had done. So, House had started punishing him. It had started off benign, mostly petty stuff like mocking him or making him do busy work. But lately he had ramped up the abuse. He wanted Chase to tell him to stop, to learn that he could let people know he was not happy and they wouldn't kick him in the teeth for it. He wanted Chase to learn this the same way he wanted Foreman to learn how to question and Cameron to learn that some things couldn't be fixed. He wanted these things because it would make them all better doctors and better people but more importantly it would make them happier. But it was painfully obvious that Chase wasn't happy.
At first, House had wondered how long Chase could take it. House wasn't letting him have any time off and was being nasty to him. But the duckling had held up well. It wasn't until House had mentioned the call from his father in front of the other ducklings that Chase finally seemed to break.
Two weeks ago.
Chase stood in front of House's desk waiting to be acknowledged. He was tired even though House had let him go home last night for six whole hours. But it didn't offset the fact that he had only had one hour of sleep every twelve hours for the last four days before and he had so viciously exhausted he was beyond tired and in the giddy light headed stage just before you start hallucinating. He felt a little better but not much.
House finally looked up at him, where he stood clutching a letter in his right hand, the left in his pocket. House eyed him critically. Chase was standing slightly skewed to the right, which meant that his bad knee was bothering him. Not surprising since Chase had bolted off to go run during dinner last night. He was also hunched over and pale but looked tidy and professional. So he had cleaned up but hadn't gotten much sleep. Chase had been avoiding him like the plague lately so he was interested what was so important that the Aussie would seek him out.
"What do want, junior?" He knew it annoyed Chase when people called him junior. He didn't like any reference to his father.
"To give you this." Chase handed him a sealed envelope with his name written in block letters on the front.
"What is it?" Normally Cameron was the one who went through his mail and tried to pick out good cases, not Chase.
Chase sighed. "A letter tendering my resignation. I already gave a copy to Cuddy." Chase wouldn't meet his boss's eyes.
House ripped the letter into small pieces and threw it back at the duckling, his stomach tightening at the fact that Chase was so miserable that he had driven him away but also perversely pleased that he had managed to get under the seemingly unflappable Aussie's skin. He had wanted to punish the duckling, to make him pay for his betrayal, but he hadn't meant to drive him away completely. "You, sparky, are under contract and can't leave until I say so or your Fellowship is up. And I'm not letting you out of it. You are stuck here for another few months so suck it up."
"Why, you don't want me here? Why not just let me leave? Why are you doing this?" Chase pleaded, pride forgotten at the prospect of having to endure several more months of this.
'I want you here, Chase. You are a good doctor and I care about you as a friend. You made a mistake but so did I, why can't we just burry the hatchet and go back to the way things were? I don't want you to be alone when your father dies and I'm worried about how sad you seem. I can see that I am hurting you, but you won't tell me to stop and I won't stop until you do.' Was what House wanted to say to the slumped young man in front of him. But instead he said. "Because, I can. Besides, you should be more than used to living someplace where you aren't really wanted." House was angry that Chase made him hurt, so he lashed out at the Aussie.
Chase's shoulders hunched even further and he crouched down to pick up the torn up pieces of his letter. House internally winced in sympathy at how much it would probably hurt the blonde's knee to stand back up. House wasn't sure what type of injury Chase had but from the type of brace he wore when he ran and the types of activities he enjoyed not to mention the constant popping, House guessed it was probably at least one damaged ligament maybe two and a torn up meniscus. He had also noticed that Chase had scars from having it scoped at least once before. "You aren't going to let me go, are you?" Chase whispered.
"Nope. Or more to the point, I'm not going to let you run away." House paused. That was dangerously close to an admission that he cared about Chase. He needed to deflect the duckling before he started to figure it out. "It must be tough for you, to realize that after everything you have gone through and everything you have accomplished you are right back where you started, having your life dictated by the whims of a surly older doctor? You are a walking example of the proverb that 'the more things change the more they stay the same.'" House leveled his intensivist with a glare, barely managing to catch his eyes. Chase had expressive eyes. They say that the eyes are the window to the soul, well Chase's were like a 50' flat screen TV. His despair and helplessness playing across it in high definition and surround sound, just the way House liked it. He watched it, half reveling in it and half repulsed by it.
House knew what Chase would do next. He would leave and swallow his anger and sadness. He would close himself off and become like an actor playing a character. He had several, the joking goofball, the lazy slacker, the concerned doctor. It made it very hard to tell what Chase was really like. It had taken House almost a month to realize when Chase was doing this. But once he had seen it, he could always tell, from the way Chase wouldn't mean his eyes to way he flattened his voice to sound less foreign. His purposeful suppression of self into a non threatening, non controversial character was hard to watch. Especially since House had seen what a smart, witty, and nice person Chase really was. It made him angry.
"I told Taylor you would cover a shift in the ICU today, so go make your self useful." House dismissed him.
"Yes, Dr. House." Chase turned and dejectedly walked off.
An hour later, Cuddy interrupted him, Wilson, and Stacy having lunch. Things were still awkward around Stacy and House but having Wilson there helped smooth things over. He could almost pretend that nothing had changed. "Dr. House. We need to start asking for résumés. The board is not going to sit back and watch you drag your feet like you did looking for Dr. Cameron's replacement."
"I'm not interviewing anyone." House stated blandly.
"You plan to pick a name out of hat?"
"It worked with Foreman."
"Dr. House, the work your team has done recently had garnered the hospital a great deal of good will in the medical community. I am not willing to squander that because you are too lazy and ill tempered to find another fellow. Either you start finding prospective candidates or I will choose one for you."
"No you won't. Chase isn't leaving."
"He gave me a letter of resignation this morning. That normally means someone is leaving. He agreed to stay around until we found a replacement. Kind of him considering."
"Considering what, that he snitched to you and Vogler on me? Or kind considering that it gives you and Stacy a few more weeks to admire his ass while he's working out?"
"Chase resigned?" Wilson finally piped in.
"He tried to, I told him no. He was under contract and has to stay."
"You do realize, Greg, if he wants to leave you can't make him stay?" Stacy pointed out.
"What about the contract. That covenant not to compete thingy? Doesn't that say he can't leave and go work for someone else?"
"Covenants not to compete are very hard to enforce. The contract is designed more to protect intellectual property. For example if he discovered the cure for cancer while working here, he couldn't take it to another hospital."
"Then what the hell is the point of the stupid thing being there?" House was becoming agitated. He had been sure he had Chase in a vice.
"They are really just a hold over from the 30's. I could stop him from getting a job at Princeton General or Harris Methodist but if he wanted to jump the boarder into New York and work for St. Jude's or something, it wouldn't be enforceable. And we don't even need to talk about if he went home. There is no way a New Jersey contract would be binding in," She paused. "Where the hell is he from anyway? Is he English or Australian?"
"English." "Australian." House and Wilson answered simultaneously.
"He is from Australia. He grew up in Melbourne but went to school in Sydney I believe." Cuddy clarified.
"So you are saying that I can't use his contract to make him stay?" House asked.
"No, you can't. There is this pesky little thing called the Constitution that disallows forced servitude. I thought everyone who made it through second grade in elementary school knew that one." Stacy answered.
"Aha. But Chase didn't go to second grade in elementary school. He went through grade two in primary school. He wouldn't know the Declaration of Independence from a Denny's menu, so we are safe."
"And you really believe that someone who has a trust fund the size of this hospital's endowment doesn't have an army of lawyers ready to get him out of the contract if he wants it?"
"I'm sure he does but that is totally beside the point. He is not leaving." House stated.
"He said he wanted to leave." Wilson countered.
"He doesn't. He is just trying to prove a point. I'm not sure what that point is, but he has made it and will now go back to normal." House answered.
"Don't think less of me if I don't trust you and start looking for applicants." Cuddy said.
"Don't bother." Wilson said, looking at his friend. "House won't let him go, even if Chase really wanted to." Wilson realized that this had nothing to do with spite, but with House not being about to admit that he cared about Chase. If it came down to it, House would swallow his pride to get Chase to stay. But he also agreed with House that Chase probably didn't really want to leave. You don't fight as hard as he did to keep a job, then walk away from it. Something must have spooked the youngest duckling and made him try to run. It was a rash, poorly thought out, and self destructive decision. It was pure Chase.
"He likes him too much to let him leave." Stacy added, critically eyeing her ex.
Cuddy nodded and walked off. She would trust the two people who knew House better than anyone.
Present
But House had been right. Chase hadn't brought up leaving since then. That had been his last act of defiance. Now, the Aussie was completely compliant. It was annoying. Maybe House had to step up the intensity a little bit. He looked out at his ducklings in the hall and watched them disperse. He leaned back and waited.
When Foreman and Cameron returned, House kindly agreed to take Chase his lunch. Cameron smiled at him, assuming him to be kind, caring, and worried about Chase's welfare. Foreman watched suspiciously, assuming House was going to poison his chief rival. House, remained in his office and paged the youngest duckling to return. He waved Chase to sit across from him at his desk and opened the white container to reveal a very rare tuna steak and broccoli, on top of pasta, no sauce. Ick! Of course he wouldn't have ordered a burger with fries.
"How are our new arrivals doing? I trust you haven't killed any of them yet." House said as he cut into the tuna. It was barely cooked and looked horrible to House.
"They are all settled and their blood is waiting in the lab for Cameron to get started." Chase ground his teeth, trying not to salivate at the site of his lunch. It was 1:30 and he hadn't had anything to eat other than espresso beans since seven the night before.
"Why didn't you start the blood work?"
"Dr. Taylor was on lunch break and two of the patients' O2 stats were unstable. I didn't want to go too far." He tried to ignore the fact that his stomach felt like it was trying to digest itself.
House got up and limped to the refrigerator and pulled out some mayonnaise, dumping it on the tuna steak. That was better. He looked at Chase and noticed the Aussie looked like he was going to cry. Chase hated mayonnaise even more than he hated peanut butter. "So why are you here now? Shouldn't you still be up there hand holding and watching numbers blip across screens?"
"Taylor came back from lunch just before you called." Chase was now utterly depressed by the destruction of what should have been his lunch.
"Fine. Go work on taking histories and calming down relatives." House was now enjoying the meal.
"Can I get some lunch first?" Chase stupidly asked. Before he would have just gone and taken a lunch and then asked for forgiveness if he were caught. But he didn't want to risk House's wrath anymore.
"I don't pay you to eat." Chase rose and headed back towards the ICU, contemplating eating his own tongue.
Luckily, one of the nurses had brought lasagna for everyone and was more than willing to share with Chase. Hah! House couldn't control everything Chase thought as he read through the charts and wolfed down some lunch.
The rest of the day went about like the beginning. They lost two more patients but one had started to wake up, Ms. Cooper, the administrative assistant. Foreman and Chase were in her room, trying to get her to respond when she finally opened her eyes. She looked straight up at Chase.
"Are you an angel?" She mumbled. Somewhere in the distance, Foreman snorted.
Chase looked over each shoulder and answered. "No wings, guess I'm not an angel. Actually, I'm Dr. Chase." He pointed at Foreman. "That's Dr. Foreman."
"You're beautiful." She mumbled, still staring glassy eyed at the blonde.
"And you have a very high fever. How are you feeling." Chase questioned. His fellow duckling was never going to let him live this down.
"I'm thirsty." She mumbled.
Chase held a straw to her lips. "Your blood sugar is a bit high. The IV fluid has glucose and sucrose in it. But it is better to keep you a little too high than a little too low." He smiled at her again. She had pretty eyes but the rest of her was bleh. He moved out of the way to let Foreman examine her.
When they were through, Foreman followed him out of the room. "Oh Dr. Chase, you look like an angel. Will you put on wings and do a striptease for me?" Foreman said in a falsetto.
"Shut up."
"Oh Dr. Chase. I have a pain right here in my heart, will you examine it for me."
"You're as bad as House." Chase countered, but couldn't help a smile from creeping to his face. Sometimes he actually liked Foreman.
"Dr. Chase, will you marry me?" Foreman batted his eyes at the Aussie.
"No way, mate. I could get much better than you."
"No you couldn't. I am far beyond the quality you could achieve, white boy." Foreman countered.
"Right. Why would I want a mere fellow if I could have someone like Wilson, the head of a department?"
"You so could not get Wilson. Maybe House, but not Wilson."
"I could too get Wilson, and I wouldn't want House."
"I bet you $50 you couldn't get Wilson." They stopped at the stairwell and Chase looked over at Foreman.
"Yeah, you are probably right. He would never cheat on House and I wouldn't want to be a home wrecker."
"Why are we arguing over whether you could get Wilson into a homosexual love affair?"
"I haven't slept in almost 24 hours, what is your excuse?"
"Communicable dementia caught from House I think." Foreman answered.
"Fare enough." Chase agreed.
As the day one dragged into day two, all of the ducklings were drained and exhausted. They had lost three more patients but five more trickled in. That made 23 total and 6 dead, roughly a quarter didn't survive. All of them had pneumonia and viral meningitis and encephalitis. Some were doing better and some were doing worse. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to who survived and who didn't but it did seem that if they survived the initial crash, they usually seemed to get stronger.
At seven thirty in the morning, 27 hours after House had woken him up at home, Chase was running on one of the treadmills in the physical therapy gym. He had been there for 45 minutes and it was the first extended break he had had since he got in yesterday morning. He knew he should probably have taken a nap but running helped him to relax. It was like a form of kinetic meditation for him. It got rid of a lot of the tension he was carrying and allowed him to let his mind wander and not think about anything specific.
Not thinking right now was good, so was being alone. House had gone home last night but Foreman and Cameron had stayed with him. Cameron was weepy and sullen from all the deaths and Foreman was pissy and snappy. Chase tried to avoid them but it wasn't easy. Plus he felt guilty as all hell from not doing a better job of saving those 6 patients. He had run the code on all of them and they had all died. He had no desire to spend another day sitting down with families explaining how "there was nothing they could do." "He is in a better place." "It was just his time." Ect. And if House made one more comment to him about it, he was going to punch the older man in the face.
He finished his work out and went to stretch. His back and knees hurt from standing up so much the day before and from sprinting up and down flights of stairs to get from one ICU to the other. He stretched out and headed for the showers. He had less than 15 minutes to get ready and get back upstairs for rounds.
He stripped quickly and went in the shower. This early in the morning he was alone and he took a moment to enjoy the soothing feel of the spray on his tired body. Just as he was lathering up his hair he heard House call his name. Damn it! Didn't he ever get a moments peace? Soon the vision of the man joined the sound of his voice, followed by Cameron and Foreman. Everyone in the room was shocked to see the youngest duckling naked, accept for House. Chase didn't know whether he wanted to drown himself or House.
"See, Foreman, you owe me $50. He is a natural blonde." House said. Chase turned as red as a tomato but he didn't hide. He wouldn't give House the satisfaction. Instead he rinsed his hair out and applied conditioner, trying not to act as uncomfortable as he felt.
"And you owe Wilson $50 because he does blush all the way down to his ass cheeks, so I'll just pay him." Foreman answered.
"I bet Cameron is too." House mentioned as he looked at the female doctor who was doing her best to look anywhere but at Chase.
"Dr. House!" She almost yelped as she blushed even more than Chase did.
"Is it wrong of me to get turned on by a fantasy of seeing Cameron and Chase together in a shower?" House asked no one in particular.
"YES!" Cameron and Chase answered in unison. House wasn't sure which one of them was more fun to sexually harass.
"What do you want, Dr. House, that couldn't wait till my break was over?" Chase asked, trying not to grind his teeth in frustration.
"Patients, how are they doing?"
"I left full reports on all of them on your chair." Chase rinsed his hair out.
"Guess I forgot to look." House lifted up Chase's bottle of conditioner, reading the label. "J Crew, no wonder you always smell so yummy." He said and reached over to pet Chase's hair.
Chase batted House's hand away and snapped. "Don't touch me!"
"Testy aren't we? Maybe if you spent your break times eating breakfast lunch and dinner rather than running, you wouldn't be so snippy or so skinny." House advised as he pointed to Chase's ribs, which were visible through his skin.
"Maybe if you gave me time to eat." Chase shot back and grabbed his towel to dry off.
"Perhaps. If all of the sicklies are stable for now, I want you and Foreman to head over to Princeton General and advice them on what we know so far. We also need samples from their patients."
Foreman and Chase both looked about to protest but Foreman beat him to the punch. "Wouldn't it make more sense to send Cameron." House wasn't quite sure if Foreman wanted to stay or just didn't want to go with Chase.
"No, it doesn't. The chief of the ER staff's name is Schlieffen and Chase is German so he should go.
"I thought I was British?" Chase questioned.
"Your mother is Dutch your father is Czech, those countries might as well be part of Germany so ipso facto you are German."
"Maybe in 1941." Chase mumbled.
"Seriously, House. Send Cameron." Foreman tried to pull the conversation back to important things.
"Cameron is the best in the lab, you are useless so far, and junior isn't having much luck saving patients so that leaves you two with the duty. Besides, Cameron and I can't have a lurid affair with you two hanging around. It just makes me fantasizes about Chase's ass." Cameron couldn't hide her smile and Chase couldn't cover the sound of his teeth grinding together. "Also, if you want some type of medical reason, Chase has the infectious disease experience at least one year of residency before you switched to your stupid little intensivist thingy and the most experience with this in the early stages and can help them pick it out."
"Fine, I'll be ready to leave in a few minutes." Chase answered.
"Good. And by the way, I can now see why Cuddy and Stacy like to use you as eye candy, while they exercise. You do have a very nice body. I wholly agree with Stacy. It would be nice to eat a fruit and wine platter off your abs. You need a tan though." House commented, knowing it would make Chase unbelievably uncomfortable.
"Get out House." Chase state coolly, trying to find some hole to crawl into.
After the others left, Chase leaned against a sink and hung his head. He didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or punch is fist into the mirror. He had to admit the serious comedic value of what House had done but he was also pissed as hell at him. But worse, it hurt that House had so little respect for him that he would walk in on him in the shower. He knew Chase hated people staring at him and this was the second time in two days that House had found some way to degrade Chase by turning into something to be ogled. He never would have done something like this to Foreman and he would loose his job for doing it to Cameron but with Chase, no one cared.
Chase sighed and continued getting ready. He didn't know what to do. He didn't want to stay anymore, but he couldn't quit either. However, he was way too tired to worry about it right now so he finished getting ready and headed out to find Foreman.
Within half an hour he and Foreman were en route to the biggest Hospital in the area, Princeton General. It was a standard county hospital, square, dingy, and smelling of antiseptic and vegetable soup. PPTH was much newer and nicer. Within two street lights, Chase had dozed off in the passenger seat of Foreman's big, black Mercedes SUV. Foreman didn't mind at all. His fellow duckling looked worn out from well over 24 hours of constant stress and no sleep. Both he and Cameron had grabbed a few Zs in House's office last night, but Chase had been too busy in the ICU to sleep. He was feeling kind today, or just tired, and pulled into a Starbucks and got some good coffee for himself and his companion. Chase didn't stir.
When they reached the other hospital, Foreman called Chase's name and managed to rouse him. "Here man, I got you a double mocha latte with an extra shot of espresso."
"Sounds caloric." Chase mumbled, trying to pull his wits together.
"It's low fat milk and there is chocolate in it." Foreman shook it in front of the Aussie. Chase loved chocolate.
"Ok." Chase took it and smiled gleefully. Foreman couldn't understand why Chase would drink vile black tea but you had to make coffee taste like coco to get him near it, unless he had no choice.
"Why do you put up with House treating you like pet?" Foreman broached the subject he had been thinking about for a while now. Both he and Cameron had noticed how mean House was starting to get towards Chase. He agreed that Chase needed to punished, preferably fired, but House's bullying was just petty and unproductive.
"I don't really have a choice in the matter do I?" Chase answered as he sipped his coffee. It wasn't bad, but it needed sugar.
"You could resign."
"I tried. House threw it back in my face." Chase looked down as they walked. It was late summer and unseasonably warm and wet. It almost reminded him of home.
"Well be firm, tell him again. Write a letter." Foreman suggested.
"I did. That was what I meant. I gave him a letter of resignation and he tore it up and threw it in my face. Then he refused to let me out of my contract." He sounded dejected remembering the scene.
"Why would he do that?" Foreman wondered.
"Maybe because he really is in love with me. I don't know, because he is an ass." Chase groused.
"You really should stand up to him. Yell at him. Tell him he is a self righteous prick and that you aren't going to put up with his shit anymore. Maybe then he will stop." That was how Foreman dealt with House most of the time. Unbeknownst to the elder doctor, that was exactly what House wanted Chase to do.
"Right. Like that ever works. When was the last time yelling at House ever accomplished anything?"
"I guess, but you have to do something. He is going to run you into the ground then kick dirt on your prone body."
"At least then I'll get to lie down." Chase tried to sound cheerful even though in fact Foreman's words hit way too close to home.
The two spent most of the day making rounds with the staff of the other hospital. Chase was appalled at the state of their ICU and Foreman was sickened by the lack of individual care given to the patients. Chase collected blood samples from those that were sick while Foreman gave the ER doctors a brief run down of what to look for. It was a long, difficult and trying day. The best part was that they were away from House the entire day.
By the time they piled into Foreman's car to go back to their own hospital, both of them were completely exhausted. Chase hasn't sat down for more than a few moments at a time and Foreman's voice was raw from talking. The elder doctor was in a particularly crumby mood because one of the patients had vomited and hit his shoe. Chase thought he was being a cry baby about it. He got puked on at least once a week in the ICU it seemed and had been tagged at least four times in the last three days. Foreman was just bitter because he hadn't had the forethought to change into scrubs like Chase had.
Foreman stopped the car in front of the back entrance and looked at Chase. "I'm going home. Take the samples up and I suggest you do the same."
"Yes sir, Lord Foreman, sir." Chase snapped. He completely agreed with the older doctor but he had spent all day listening to Foreman tell people what to do and was just plain tired of hearing the other man's voice. He slid out of the car and Foreman sped off. Lucky him.
Chase made his way up to the pathology lab to drop off the samples. If he was really lucky he wouldn't run into House and he could sneak out when he was finished. He lazily took the lift rather than the stairs and walked right into House as the doors opened.
"Nice to have you back. Where is your cohort?"
"He went home." Chase stuttered. He had been off in his own little world, dreaming about his bed and was quite startled to see his boss.
"Good, he looked tired. I sent Cameron home too so those samples will have to sit on ice till tomorrow." House tilted his head sideways and looked at his youngest duckling. Of them all, Chase looked the worse. His hair was unruly because he had missed his normal haircut. His clothes were rumpled and his tie was tucked into his pocket. Every line of the blonde's body projected exhaustion and defeat as House spoke again. "With them both gone, you had better go settle that case you sent over this afternoon."
Chase slumped against the wall as House walked away. It was 7:30 at night and he had been working for 39 hours straight. He was about to start crying. But for lack of any defense against House's ire, Chase dropped off the samples, changed into fresh scrubs and headed to the ICU to check on the 71 year old deacon that he had transferred over from Princeton General. He was case number 24.
The night went much as the one before. Two more patients died, a husband and wife both in their late sixties. Their 8 children where in the waiting room and kept him there for almost an hour with their wailing. He was almost thankful when there was another code and he could leave. That person survived. By six the next morning, Chase had had enough. He and Dr. Gardner, the other ICU doctor on call, were both up to their eyeballs in work and had been running from code to code all night. His dinner had been a handful of stale shredded wheat Dr. Gardener had in her locker and the only time he had sat down was when he was talking to the family.
At 6:15 he called Cameron and asked her to come in and help. She was more than happy to, for which he almost dropped to his knees in thanks. She arrived just as he was finishing up the paper work on the dead wife. She saw him rub his hand over his face and noticed how awful he looked. What she didn't know was that he felt just as awful as he looked. His back, shoulders, and neck ached from being hunched over all night. His head was starting to pound from hunger and exhaustion. And his eyes were so dry from wearing the same contacts for two days that he could barely see. Cameron knocked on the glass and smiled at him.
"I brought you breakfast. I figured you didn't have time to get any." She waved a bag from his favourite bagel shop.
"You are a saint, woman, thank you." He wanted to kiss her. For all that she drove him nuts and made him want to turn away from women completely because of her ridiculous school girl crush on House and incessant poking into his personal life, Cameron could be a really decent person. She had taken it upon herself to play the den mother to her group of men, which usually drove him to distraction, but right now her thoughtfulness was exactly what he needed.
"You're welcome. How did things go last night?" She questioned as she followed him to the nurses' station.
"Not too bad. We had 11 codes but only lost two. But that is eight deaths out of twenty-four cases. Not great odds. Did you and House come up with anything yesterday while Foreman and I were gone?" He questioned. He dropped off the dead woman's file and told the nurse he to page him if they needed him. She smiled at him. Her name was Carol. She was the oldest nurse in the ICU and treated him like a son. She was also one of the best nurses in the hospital and was often responsible for making residents and med students rethink their careers with her blunt manner. She and April were his two favourite nurses. Carol because she was good and always said what needed to be said and April because she was from the British Virgin Islands and always brought him tea when he ran out. He tried to live by the rule his father taught him. 'Treat every nurse like she knows more than you because it is entirely conceivable that she does.' A little sexist but still held a ring of truth.
"Nothing yet. We narrowed down that all of the patients go to the same church. They were on some sort of religious retreat last weekend at some private lake about 80 miles from here. Beyond that we don't know squat."
"The pneumonia seems to be responding to the antibiotics but the meningitis and encephalitis have got to be viral. The patients aren't coughing as much but they are still seizing, screaming, and hurling all over the place." They reached their own conference room and Cameron put on a pot of coffee and Chase retrieved his lime marmalade from the ice box. Cameron turned her nose up at it. She had tried it once and thought it tasted like raw limes mixed with metal shavings. She didn't care for it.
As they enjoyed their breakfasts, Cameron turned over to her fellow duckling. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you look terrible."
"I don't know how I could take that in a good way." He smiled to show he was kidding. It was his fake smile. Like the professional and reassuring one he plastered to his face when dealing with a scared family or the kind one when dealing with a patient. There was also the friendly one he gave to the rest of the staff so they didn't think he was a stuck of prig like they thought of Foreman. He couldn't remember the last time he had smiled for real. Part was because he was just so run down from work and fighting with House. However, part was also because he had stopped taking his anti-depressants a few months ago and his depression was starting to flare up with a vengeance. He felt completely despondent and was helpless to do anything about it. He was too afraid to ask Wilson to refill his prescription because Wilson was House's friend, why would he want to help Chase. The sadness and the guilt were like a physical pain in his chest and House comments about him letting patients die were not helping him.
"When was the last time you slept?" Cameron pulled his attention back.
"What is today?" He was trying to divert her attention with jokes. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate her concern it was just that he thought she was nosey for asking.
Cameron had known Chase long enough to realize that she wasn't likely to get a straight answer out of him. He was worse than House about evading personal questions. She still remembered trying to figure out what was going on between him and his father. It had been worse than pulling teeth. He had nearly ripped her head off, at least for him it was like ripping someone's head off. Chase was a pretty mellow guy generally speaking. She had only wanted to know because she was worried about him. She wanted to help him. It wasn't right that a father and son should be so estranged, especially when they seemed so much alike. One day maybe he would tell her. She always figured that Chase would be a lot happier if he opened up more. It was sometimes tough to be friends with him. He was too reserved and evasive. It was like he didn't trust anyone and his lack of trust was hurtful to her. She had always been a good friend to him. She was the only one who had tried to talk to him when he was upset about his father.
But none of that was important now. "That long, huh? Why don't you go take a nap in the office? I'll let do your rounds for you." She offered. Trying to bridge the gap between them that had existed since the whole Vogler mess. She didn't hold grudges and didn't want Chase to think she was mad at him. She understood why he had done the things he had. He was clearly House's least favourite and would have been the one fired. House respected Foreman and had feelings for her. Chase was a nonentity, at least as she saw it.
"Thank you so much, Cam. I take back almost every mean thing I ever said about you."
"Almost?" She questioned as he collected their trash.
"I'm sorry. I still think you look better in your glasses." He smiled and slowly rose from his chair. Finally sitting down had made him unbelievably groggy.
"Freak." She giggled and gave him a gentle push towards House's office and the comfy chair.
Chase gratefully sank into the chair and propped his feet up. He heard Cameron leave and closed his eyes. This had been one of the most civil conversations he and Cameron had had in months. He missed her sometimes. He missed the fun confident doctor that used to work with them. Lately all he saw was an insecure, hovering, mother hen, with a school girl crush on her boss. She was better than that. But also, he just couldn't look at her the same after Rowan left. The pain of her siding with Rowan still stung.
He dropped off quickly and was dead to the world until House arrived. House walked into his office approximately one hour after Chase had fallen asleep. He looked at his dozing duckling and thought that the younger doctor looked like shit. But worse, was the awful, shiver worthy sound of the Aussie grinding his teeth in his sleep. It made House's skin crawl when he heard it.
"Wake up, you worthless git. I don't pay you to sleep." He roared, just to stop that sound.
Chase bolted upright and glanced around, looking for the emergency. When he realized what happened he glared at his boss. "House." It sounded more like an accusation than a greeting.
"Good morning, Sparky. Go do rounds." Chase rose slowly from the chair, every muscle sore.
"Of course, Dr. House." The Aussie tried to sweep out of the room with as much dignity as he could must after having been scared awake and moving as slow as a man three times his age.
At 9am, Foreman arrived and the department started brainstorming again. They came up with nothing new. Finally House sent them all off to pour over the histories and lab results, while Chase went back to check on the patients. Foreman took this opportunity to corner his boss.
"House, I don't know what type of game you are playing, but why don't you just fire the kid."
"I assume you are referring to Chase." House asked, peeved. He had an idea floating around in the back of his head and wanted to let it filter to the top in quiet.
"Yes. Why won't you just let him leave. You are working him to death."
"Ah Foreman, I didn't think you cared about him."
"Hey, I have nothing against roughly half of his 20 different personalities but and pretty soon he is going to screw something up and someone is going to die. You may not like him but do you really want to cost him his license?"
"So what do you suggest?" Now he was interested.
"Just let him go home. You can find someone better than him in a heart beat. Someone whose specialty actually has something to do with diagnostics."
"Duly noted. Now go back to work."
"You aren't even going to consider it?"
"Considered and disregarded. I don't care what that pissant told you, but Chase is staying."
"In my opinion, you are " Foreman started.
"When I want your opinion I'll tell you what it is." House yelled and Foreman knew better than to question him further.
Instead, he gestured for Cameron to join him in the lab. As they sat down he looked at her. "That was weird."
"House doesn't like people telling him what to do." She apologized for their boss.
"No, not that. I mean that he won't let Chase to leave. Think about it. When I got that job offer in LA, he said I could go no questions asked. When you resigned, he didn't even try to stop you. But Chase, he won't let out of his sight. I wonder why he is so adamant to keep the kid here." Foreman mused.
"He didn't want me to go." Cameron pointed out, annoyed that House would be more instant about Chase staying than her.
"No, he didn't want you do go, but he didn't pitch a blue-bloody fit about it like he is doing with Chase. It is just odd."
"I suppose." Now she was wondering why House hadn't tried harder to get her to stay. It wasn't fair she was much nicer to him than Chase was. House and Chase were always fighting with each other. They were constantly sniping and being rude and sarcastic to one and other. House would throw his ball down the hall and tell Chase to fetch. Chase would bring it back but only after dipping it in water. Then House would give him a lint covered animal cracker out of his pocket. Chase would pulverize the biscuit and put it in House's coffee. Or once House dipped the ends of Chase's hair in red Jell-O and dyed it pink. So Chase loosened the casters on the bottom of House's chair so when the elder doctor sat down he kept rolling all over the place. It was childish. She never acted like that towards her boss. So why would House want to keep someone who acted like that?
As the morning wore on, so did the last of Chase's nerves. He was beyond tired and into the realm of ridiculously exhausted. His neck was stiff as hell and his brain felt like it was four sizes too big for his head. He had given up and taken his contacts out, switching to his glasses, which he never wore at work. He also felt sort of dizzy and his chest felt tight like he had been in a smoky pub. He ignored it though, assuming it was all just from being tired.
At lunch time, Chase trudged up the stairs to House's office to let him know they had lost another patient. It was a six year old boy, who was one of the last to arrive. His fever had spiked at over 105 just before his heart stopped. Chase was thoroughly depressed from the turn of events and wanted nothing more than to take a hot shower to get the knots out of his neck and then curl up in bed and sleep for a week. He had his hands tucked into his pockets, a file under his arm, and his head down as he approached the office door. He was so tired and distracted that he walked head first into the glass door with a resounding crack and a muttered curse.
"I see Helen Keller is home." House sniped to Wilson, who was also sitting in his office.
Chase rubbed his head and opened the door correctly this time, trying not to blush. He handed House the file of the most recently deceased. "Jacob Tucker, six years old, admitted early yesterday morning."
"Dead or better?" House asked.
"Dead." Chase intoned evenly. It was never easy to give up on a child. Not that it was easy to give up trying to save anyone, but children where the hardest.
"You're batting a thousand today. Isn't this dead person number nine? Maybe I should send the janitor up to take your place." House commented to his slump shouldered doctor. Before, this would have been taken lightly. Chase would have had some glib come back but not now. Now Chase was exhausted and depressed. House's words cut too deep and hurt like a whip lash.
"I'm sorry. I did the best I could." Chase said quietly without looking up. House looked at Wilson past his dejected duckling and Wilson had a very disapproving look on his face. This wasn't like Chase at all, not even the newer more compliant Chase that had evolved after Vogler. It was normal for Chase to not argue, but it was not normal for him to take a shot at his medical skill without even flinching. Yester morning, House had received a middle finger for making a similar comment. House wondered if he had really broken his duckling down completely. He wasn't sure if Chase was stating a fact or pleading to be told it was true.
"We know you did your best, Chase. House was just being an ass as usual. He gets that way when he can't figure out a problem." Wilson interjected with an even more pointed look at his friend. Chase nodded his head without looking up. The sunshine from the window behind House's desk was making his eyes hurt.
"How are the others doing?" House questioned.
"Stable for now. I'll go check on them again." He turned to walk out.
"Chase." House called after him. "I'll send Foreman. Sit down and get some sleep." Chase looked like he might refuse but in the end he nodded his head and sat down in a large chair. House hoped that Chase didn't think he was insinuating that Foreman had a better chance of saving patients, on the contrary he far and way had more trust in Chase when it came to critical patients. That was, after all, the younger doctor's specialty.
Wilson left and House pulled the blinds closed, darkening the office. He would let Chase sleep for a few hours, then send him back in the fray. Unfortunately, House really did need the Aussie there. However, not 30 minutes past before Cameron had Chase paged to return to the ICU. The youngest duckling was up and running before House even registered the sound of the beeper. He decided that he would tag along for this one, but at a slower pace.
When House arrived in the ICU, Cameron, Foreman, and Chase were working on an older man, the one sent over yesterday. The man's O2 stats were in the tank, his respirations were nonexistent, and his heart rhythm and blood pressure were dropping dangerously low. House watched his team work to save the man's life. For once, they all ceded to Chase, even Foreman, which was rare. They worked like a well oiled machine and he was insanely proud of them, though he would never admit it.
They were all so different. Foreman was the front man, the loudest, most forceful, and most obnoxious. He was a typical doctor and couldn't admit he was wrong to save his life. Then there was Cameron, the beauty queen, brilliant, but not as smart as the other two. Cameron was the hard worker, not the natural talent. She was a strange mix confidence and insecurity covered all over with squishy kindness. But House had learned never to under estimate her. Finally was the youngest duckling, Chase. He was the most creative of the bunch by leaps and bounds but also the most scatter brained. As smart as Foreman but not as confident and he was twice as lazy as Cameron but right 3 times more often.
They managed to save man, surprisingly. House would have given up long before Chase had but that was why Chase was the intensivist, not him. Foreman and Carmen left the room first, while Chase stayed to make a few final adjustments. Foreman looked self satisfied, like he had willed it all into happening. Cameron looked relieved that they had saved a life. Chase, when he finally came to join them, just looked tired.
They all stared at each other for a moment, all content to let House speak first. "So what does all this up and down crashing tell us?" He asked as he limped back towards his office then stopped when he realized Chase wasn't following him.
"Do you care to join us, Chase, or did Foreman eat onions for lunch?" House questioned. He had been standing up too long and his leg was complaining.
"April said that one of the other patients is probably about to crash. I don't want to go too far. We have been noticing a pattern that the patients' heart rate drop dramatically but respirations shoot way up about an hour before they crash." Chase answered as he signed some form a nurse handed him. He could have been signing away his home for all the attention he was paying.
"And you just felt like mentioning that now? Don't you think that was kind of an important fact? Apparently I didn't need to see you naked to tell you were a natural blonde. I just had to wait for the dumb roots to show." House snapped. Foreman snickered and Cameron covered her mouth with her hand to hide a smile.
Chase took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the pounding in his head rather than his desire to pound House's head against the wall. "I'm sorry I didn't mention it out loud. I was in all the files." He had meticulously recorded these things in each file for each patient whether they survived or not.
House glared at him. He hadn't read the files. "Well what does that tell us?" House leaned against the nurses' station, ceding that Chase had to stay near the ICU, but not wanting to let the duckling out of the brainstorming session.
"That their brains have lost the ability to regulate autonomic functions and we will have to do it for them. Why don't you wire up all their hearts and set ventilators?" Foreman asked.
"Most of the patients left are over 60 or under 5 plus they all have pneumonia. We would need a pediatric cardiologist to wire the kids and several, roughly half, of the adults have either pace makers or a history of cardiac problems. It's too risky." Chase argued.
"Well what are we supposed to do pray?" Foreman snapped.
"Boys, boys, play nice. What else do we know? Do the histories tell us anything?" He looked to Cameron. Her job had been to run tests and collate the histories.
"They all belong to the same church. They all went on a church retreat to a lake on private land last weekend. Of the ill, there was only one set that were related, a husband and wife, and they are both dead. The people are mostly very young or very old and the only ones in the middle were an HIV positive 35 year old and two diabetics."
"Slow moving lake, could be a parasite." Foreman threw in.
"Blood smears were clear." Cameron shot him down.
"What if we ignore the respiratory symptoms?" Chase asked, an idea on the tip of his mental tongue.
"Why don't we just ignore the fever too. While were at it we'll just ignore everything. These people aren't sick. They just like blinky lights and loud machines." Foreman snipped.
"No, I mean. The pneumonia is bacterial but the neurological problems aren't responding to antibiotics. What if they are two separate infections?" Chase thought out loud as he doodled a picture of a duck on the margins of a chart.
"Good idea. Foreman, call around to vets in the area and see if any of them have sick horses?"
"You think these people caught something from horse back riding?" Cameron seemed skeptical.
"No, but horses are a good barometer for human arboviruses."
"We already tested for West Nile, which is most likely." Cameron pointed out.
"Test for the rest of them." House turned to leave with Foreman and Cameron following. Chase stayed behind to be near the patients.
Two hours later, Chase stumbled into the lab. Foreman and Cameron were there running tests on all the blood samples. Chase flopped down in one of the stools and buried his aching head in his arms. He felt wretched. He was exhausted and every joint ached fiercely. He was freezing cold and had to go put a long sleeve shirt under his scrubs to stop from shivering. He was also dizzy and kept having flashes of double vision. He needed to get some sleep soon or he was going to fall on his face.
"Any news?" Cameron asked. She was in her element in the lab. She enjoyed the repetition of running tests. She felt like she was doing something here. She was helping to find the cause of the illness and suffering. She wouldn't feel so horrible about all the dead if she could save some of the living. She would work well into the night without realizing it that was how intent she got on finding a way to help.
"We lost the 71 year old deacon. I tried everything, but I couldn't get his heart rate up. I wired him and as soon as the current stopped so did his heart. He couldn't breath on his own or beat his own heart. His wife said to give up." Chase mumbled into his arm. He was depressed.
"What? How could you let her do that? We are so close to figuring out what is causing this." Cameron accused. She couldn't fathom how anyone would choose to give up rather than keep hoping and trying.
"It wasn't my decision. She asked if he could live without the machines I told her no he couldn't. She made the call that she wanted no machines. What was I supposed to do? Tell her to keep him in a persistent vegetative state? He went almost 8 minutes without sufficient oxygen. There wasn't any part of the man she married left." Chase defended himself. He hated making those types of calls. He always stuttered through them. The worst was when they asked what he would do. He always tried to find some way around the question. He personally had chosen to have life support for his comatose mother cut off. He had been 16 when he made the call and anyone and everyone got involved with it because his mother had been famous. There had been a trial and parliamentary hearings. And it still kept him up at night, to this day, wondering if he had made the right decision.
Cameron took a deep breath to yell at her coworker. Her nerves were frayed thin and she hated the way Chase didn't ever seem to react to things. But then she took one look at the blonde, with his head pillowed on his arms and dark circles under his eyes, and she realized that even though he didn't show it, these things still bothered him.
"You're right, Chase, sorry." She smiled at him. He gave her a weak smile in return.
Chase sat there discussing the patients with his fellow doctors for another half hour. His head was killing him and he just realized that he hadn't eaten since 6:30 that morning but he wasn't in the least bit hungry. While the other two ran tests, Chase made charts with results and other information. After a time, his head hurt so much he couldn't concentrate. Every he moved his neck, it shot pain up and down his head and back. "Cam, do you have any aspirin? I have got a vicious head ache." He asked. Afraid if he didn't get rid of it soon his head might actually explode.
"Sure." She rummaged through a drawer and produced two white pills. "Here. But I think some sleep would do more for your head than these will." She commented. Chase looked completely worn out.
"Believe me I know. But those obnoxious patients keep expecting me to bring them back from the dead." He pouted as he swallowed the pills with a cup of cold coffee, the gastric equivalent of washing torn batteries down with napalm. Cameron patted him on the back as he went back to her station.
Chase was soon paged back to the ICU then back to the lab. Next was House's office then back to the lab. He collapsed on a stool again and looked at Foreman and Cameron. They both looked almost as tired as he did. He returned to finishing his chart when he started to feel rather nauseous. He drank some water and tried to ignore it but it kept getting worse. He felt like every pound of his head was making his stomach clench. He felt himself start to drool and almost left to go empty his gut but Foreman distracted him.
"You ok man? You just got really pale." Foreman had been waiting for some results and had been watching Chase. He didn't really like the guy. Chase was an example of everything he hated about the medical community. Chase was a rich doctor whose daddy was a rich doctor and had gotten him his job. It wasn't that he didn't think Chase was a good doctor, on the contrary he could admit that Chase was damn good at what he did, but he just didn't think that what Chase did was very hard. He also didn't think Chase deserved to have this fellowship when there were probably much better doctors around who didn't have nepotism going for them.
"Yeah, I'm fine. My headache just isn't going away. I'm going to go check on the patients. I'll be back in a few." Chase lied and headed for the nearest men's room and turned off the overhead lights. He locked the door behind him and sank down on his knees in front of the toilet. He felt bloody horrible. His head, neck, shoulders, back, hips, and knees all hurt like they were dislocated and he felt nauseous enough to hurl any minute.
He sat there for a while, fighting the urge to be sick and praying no one was looking for him. Then he gave up and let himself vomit, hoping it would make him feel better. The problem was, once he started, he had a hard time stopping. Each retch sent a wave of pain threw his head and neck, which in turn just made him more nauseous.
When he finally managed to get himself back under control, he leaned against the bowl, occasionally spitting the excess saliva out of his mouth. He wondered if something was wrong with him. He was still freezing cold and shivering slightly but that could just be from adrenaline. All the aches and pains could be from exhaustion, but they did seem worse than normal. But what about the vomiting, Chase thought. It must just be from not eating and only drinking very acidic, caffeinated beverages.
He finally pushed himself up and staggered to the sink, dizzy as if he were drunk. He splashed water on his face and brushed his teeth with a paper flannel. He looked human but felt slightly left of dead. He went to talk to house. When he left the dark quiet bathroom, the bright lights and loud noises of the hallway almost sent him running back to the toilet but he managed to control himself and lurched towards House's office.
He saw House, resting in his chair, looking rather stoned. Maybe House was in Vicodin happy land and would take pity on him. "Dr. House?" Chase questioned.
"What?" House croaked.
Chase immediately realized that this wasn't happy drugged up House but coming down in pain House. He bit the inside of his cheek in frustration. "I was wondering if I could go home?" He pressed forward anyway. He wanted to lie down more than just about anything in the world.
"No." House didn't even consider it.
"But Dr. House." Chase stammered as a wave of dizziness hit him and he leaned back against the door do stop from falling. He took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm very tired and not feeling well. I'm not of much use to you right now. Just let me go home for 8 hours and I'll come back."
"No." House almost sang it. Chase had an annoying flash back of when House was telling him that Gabe was getting 'Better' even after he had shown that it wasn't an autoimmune problem.
"You let Foreman and Cameron go home yesterday. They are both here now and can stay till I get back. Dr. Standish and then Dr. Gardner will be in ICU for critical care." He tried to plead. He didn't think he had felt this bad since he had malaria.
"Let me think about this. No."
"Why?" Chase whined.
"Because Foreman would say I was racist if I didn't let him go home and you aren't as cute as Cameron."
"If I come back wearing tight pants and promise to flirt with you at every available opportunity like Cameron does, will you let me take some time off to sleep?
"No, you would actually have to put out." House waved his hand in dismissal and Chase took the hint.
"Bugger off, House." Chase snapped as he stormed out. House smiled after his duckling was out of sight. Maybe there was a back bone left there after all.
The next three hours were a whirl wind of hurry up and wait. Chase managed to grab a short nap in the ICU lounge while Dr. Standish minded the fort for him. But Foreman and Cameron kept paging him to come back so they could brainstorm. About now he was so tired and sick feeling he didn't give a rip if these people lived or died.
He had been sick twice more but neither had been as long or as violent as the first time. He was still so cold he was shivering and he felt unbelievably thirsty. His lungs were also tightening up, like he had bronchitis. He tried to ignore these things as his vision kept switching from double to single while talking to Foreman and Cameron. Then his phone rang and he looked down feeling like maybe the day might look up after all.The number displayed lightened his heart even if bending his head down sent waves of pain shooting across his skull and down his back. "Do you guys mind if I take this call?" Chase asked, praying Foreman and Cameron would let him leave.
"Sure, we'll page you if we need you." Cameron answered, still obsessively intent on her gel tests.
Chase pressed the talk button and told the person on the other line to hold on. He then headed down the back stair case and out to the service entrance of the hospital. He propped the door open and sank gratefully down on the sun warmed steps. Dusk was descending and Chase turned to watch the pinks and yellows play through the smoggy air.
"Sorry, mate, I'm here now." He started the conversation.
"Good. How are you, Robin? I left you three messages at home and you didn't answer me. I was getting worried." Cassie, Chase's best friend, surrogate sister, and father confessor questioned. They were everything to each other save lovers and had known each other almost from birth.
"I haven't been home in three days. We have an out break of some type of encephalitis. People have been crashing and dying left and right." Chase rubbed his head as he talked. He felt like his brain was pressing against the back of his head in an attempt to escape through his eye sockets.
"How many people?" Cass was relieved just to hear Chase's voice. She was worried at how depressed he had been sounding lately.
"Twenty four sick, nine dead so far."
"Are you ok with it?" Obviously he wasn't, who would be ok with that many people dying in front of them. She was trying to gauge just how upset he was. She reckoned she knew him better than anyone else and knew how the more something hurt him the more he tried to hide it. It was a defense mechanism he had learned long ago just to survive in his own home.
"I'm fine. I am a doctor. I see people die all the time." He tried to obfuscate. It hurt like a punch in the chest that so many people had died under his care.
"Yeah, doesn't bother you just like bad review don't bother me?" She called bullshit on him.
"Ok, so let us both live out our charades and pretend we are happy with dying people and nasty music critics." He leaned his head back against the half brick wall he was resting against in a weak attempt to alleviate the pounding and pressure.
"No, because I can tell you aren't happy."
"Fine, it hurts like hell and I feel totally useless and helpless. But, crying about it doesn't do any good." Chase answered, half in jest. He hated feeling helpless unfortunately it was a common state of affairs with him.
"Sure. What about everything else? How are you doing besides the outbreak? You sound kind of funny." She noticed he sounded muffled and quiet, like he was whispering to someone with a hangover.
"I have a really bad headache that hurts so much it has been making me hurl." He decided to be honest with her. It was nice to talk to someone, who might actually care if he fell on his face. Cass was the one person he would open up to willingly. She knew his dirty little secrets and she still loved him. She was the only person that had never betrayed him and never left him. She was the only person that he really and truly trusted.
"Well tell that puss bag you work for that you need to go home."
"I did, he won't listen. He told me to go back to work." A car drove by, its headlights shining in his eyes, spiking pain through his head. The sudden pain made his stomach clench and he leaned forward with his head between his legs drooling.
"I don't understand why you just don't quit. He can't do anything to do. Your barrister could get you out and if not, you could just buy out your contract. Is proving Rowan wrong really worth all this?" She hated hearing him sound so down and she hated the fact that House was responsible. But mostly she hated Rowan for making his son think he had to jump threw all these hoops just to get a little bit of parental affection.
"I know I could leave but I did promise I would stay for 2 years and I should honor that promise." The sick feeling in his gut subsided and he pulled his knees up to his chest to hug them. He started to shiver even more.
"Robin, you are not your father. Leaving a job is not the same thing as leaving a family. No one would think any less of you if you came home. You deserve to be happy." She tried to convince him.
"No, I don't. I deserve what House is doing to me. I betrayed him." This was an old disagreement between them. She had a much more transient sense of loyalty than he did.
"No you don't and no you didn't. You saved your job from the chopping block. You dished about a co worker. Big freaking deal! And everything you told was stuff that should have been known anyway, right? House is a menace, not a saviour and you don't owe him a god damn thing." Cass spat vehemently. She just wished that should she could make Chase understand that work was work and personal was personal. Work only became personal if you let it and he needed to quit letting it happen. She was smart enough to realize that part of the problem was that Chase was insanely lonely in New Jersey. He hadn't known a single person in America when he moved there and the people he worked with were the only souls he really ever had extended contact with.
"Can we talk about something else? I've been fighting for or against something all day. I'm exhausted and just want to be cheered up. Tell me about where ever you are." He begged. Upstairs, everyone was over stressed, over tired, and on edge. He needed to relax and recharge even if it was only a few minutes.
"Of course." She soothed, telling him about Paris, the venue, and her recent shows. He sounded awful and she wanted nothing more than to be able to give him a hug and a kiss on the forehead, telling him that everything was ok. He tended to stress about things till he made himself sick. He let things eat away at his insides, little by little until he crumbled into dust. It was so hard to stop him once he started but she tried anyway. She loved him more than anyone in the world even though sometimes being friends with him was like watching a train wreck, but only if you knew where to look.
Chase listened to her describe her travels and he felt his shoulders relax slightly. She could do that to him, her deep velvety voice that sold so many records could calm him down like nothing but valium should. She was exactly what he needed right now. He just wished he could see her in person. He missed actually being able to physically touch her, not in a sexual way, but in a friendly comforting way. He missed rubbing her shoulders after a long day and falling asleep with his head in her lap. He missed the sight of her, the sound of her, and the smell of her in his day to day life.
"So I was thinking. Do you reckon that asswipe you work for would give you some time off in the fall? I was thinking a ski trip is in order for our birthdays this year. Maybe not Gstaad because the photographers were so annoying last year, but maybe we should try Bormio, Italy, " She suggested. Their birthdays were 10 days apart and they tried to always spend them together. She wanted to take him somewhere quiet and secluded. They had both grown up as children of famous mothers and while she embraced it, going into acting at age 11 and later singing, Chase ran from it. He had never liked the photographer circles that followed them everywhere but he had become almost phobic of them since his mother had died and the trial surrounding her death had been played out in the media. He had changed his name and moved half a world away to try and escape them and mostly had. However, when she was around, they found them both again and it made him miserable.
"I don't know." Chase answered, not sure if House would ever let him take any time off again even though he had three weeks of vacation he had never used.
"Come on. Call in sick for week. We can go to Aspen or Telluride even if you can't make it all the way to Italy." She tried to cajole.
"I'm not sure." He stuttered wanting nothing more than to be with her someplace dark and quiet like a ski lodge.
"I miss you, Robin, I haven't seen you in forever. That bastard has to give you some time off or I am sicking my lawyers on him." Ok, now she moved on to guilt and sheer manipulation. He needed a break and she was going to make sure he got one before he ran himself into another nervous breakdown.
"I'll talk to him." He had wanted to say more, but he hadn't gotten the chance before his pager went off. He quickly told her good bye and took off back up to the second floor ICU.
Across the Atlantic, in Paris, France, Cass leaned back against her pillows and pondered. She needed to do something to cheer him up and fast. He sounded bloody terrible, worse than she had heard him yet. She quickly dialed the concierge and asked them to find her an all night delivery service in New Jersey.
They managed to save both of the patients that coded in the last two hours and another had even woken up. Foreman had been concerned about their inability to speak clearly but it was a 65 year old woman. She might have suffered a stroke. They would check later but right now House wanted them all in his office.
The ducklings entered to find Wilson, House, and Cuddy already seated. Foreman and Cameron took the only two seats left at the long table, so Chase took one of the chairs by the door. He felt like a total outsider. It was the least of his worries though. He needed to talk to House after this. House had to let him go home. He had had to have Foreman intubate the last patient because he was shaking and shivering so much he couldn't keep his hands steady.
They began to discuss what was happening and all rejoiced as they finally had a definitive diagonosis, Eastern Equine Encephalitis and bacterial pneumonia. Though theoretically, there wasn't much to be happy about since it usually carried between a 35 - 50 mortality rate. Chase contributed nothing to the conversation. He had been freezing for the last four hours but now felt like he was on fire. He tugged and the back of his lap coat and felt sweat drip from his hair line.
He looked past the table to the window just as the spotlights from the helicopter lading pad shown through the slated blinds. The light flickered into his eyes and looked like the strobing flashes of paparazzi cameras. They burned into his eyes making his head feel like it was going to explode. He turned away, shooting pain through his neck and head, catching the light as he shown off of Wilson's glass. Chase started, thinking Wilson was trying to photograph him. He hated camera. He hated having his picture taken. He hated reporters and the media. He just wanted to be left alone.
He dropped his head into his hand and the weird image passed as suddenly as it had come. It left him feeling weak, ill and like someone was roasting him over a fire pit. His tongue felt swollen and sticky in his mouth and he needed a drink. He rose unsteadily and staggered over towards the ice box. No one paid much heed to him, but Wilson. Wilson gave House a pointed look and House watched the way his youngest duckling staggered like a drunk. House nodded almost imperceptibly. He would let Chase leave as soon as they were finished and he was sure that Wilson would probably drive the Aussie home.
Chase managed to make it back to his seat and almost fell down into it. He rubbed the cold water bottle against his super heated forehead. The bottle felt like a block of ice, almost painfully cold against his hot skin. He could feel himself sweating through is long sleeve undershirt he wore beneath his scrubs and it felt terrible. He wanted to rip his clothes off and jump in the snow just to stop the feeling that he was burning.
House rose and wrote on the board. Chase tried to focus on it, but it looked like jumble of nonsense to him. He pushed his glasses down his nose and rubbed his eyes. The sound of the marker against the board was like sirens blaring in his ears, making his head hurt so much he could barely see. He dropped it so that his chin rested against his chest. When he raised it again, blue and white dots danced in front of his eyes and he saw two of everything. He was washed with a wave of dizziness and thought he was going to throw up on the floor. He had to get out of there. He was anxious and everything was too bright, too loud, and too hot. He rose to leave and staggered towards the door when Wilson called his name.
House had been vaguely paying attention to his youngest duckling since he had come back in the room. Even before Wilson's prodding, House had taken one look at Chase and realized that he was going to send him home. Chase looked awful. He was white as a ghost, even for him, and had a dark red flush over his nose and cheeks. He also noticed the perspiration running down his intensivist's face and the way he kept hiding behind his hand. He had only grown more concerned when Chase rose to get his water. The Aussie staggered foot over foot, ataxia, which could be caused from exhaustion but now House wasn't so sure.
Then Chase had gotten up again, and Wilson called his name. House looked over in time to see Chase turn from white to grey and then fall onto his hands and knees. Before anyone could get to him, he started to retch up bile and mucus in thick ropey cords onto the floor. Everyone sat, stunned for a split second. Wilson was the first to react and knelt beside the younger doctor, shoving a trash can under him. The oncologist supported the ill Aussie, being more than used to people throwing up in front of him. Wilson put his hand on Chase's forehead to pull his hair out of his face and felt like he had just touched a stove burner.
"Get a thermometer." Wilson said steadily to no one in particular. However, before Cuddy could comply, Chase lost consciousness. Wilson helped to lower the duckling to the floor when he felt the blonde go limp.
When Cuddy returned, Wilson took the proffered thermometer and couldn't hide the gasp of shock when he read the numbers, 104.8" Wilson looked at his friend.
"We have to get him in ICU, now. Foreman a gurney, Cameron, go find a room." House barked.
Both ducklings stood staring at their companion, not moving. Each of them having the same thought playing through their head. "What was wrong with Chase and was he going to be alright?"
"Now!" House yelled even louder, shaking the two out of their stupor. Cuddy and Wilson were already working to loosen Chase's close and make sure his air way was clear. Wilson was quickly inserting an IV that Cuddy had brought. They would have to switch it to a cool one to try and bring down his temperature.
Once the ducklings had left, he turned to House. "This is how the other presented." It was a statement not a question, with a duckling they would have looked to House to verify this fact, Wilson didn't need it. "How the hell did he catch it?"
"Maybe your diagnosis was wrong." Cuddy stated as she handed Wilson tape.
"Maybe it is and it is something that can go airborne." House stated flatly as he watched the two other doctors work on Chase. He should have helped, but he felt rooted to the spot he was standing. If he was right about the diagnosis, Chase only had a 50/50 chance of survival and a ¼ change of coming out of it without permanent neurological problems. This couldn't be happening, not now. Not before they made amends with each other.
TBC
A/N: I just wanted to mention that I know I messed with the incubation period of EEE and that there have only been about 200 human cases in the last 40 years but I see it now and again in horses so I thought I would use it. As for the transmission through a used needle, that is more controversial. There has never been a zoological case of an arbovirus being transmitted threw infected needles or transfusion, to the best of my knowledge, however, conventional knowledge says that anything that can be transmitted through mosquitoes can be transmitted via exposure to infected blood. Also, EEE is far more concentrated in human blood than in horses even when a horse goes encephalitic. Finally West Nile Virus can be transmitted human to human via transfusion and occupational exposure, which is technically what Chase's case would fall under, so why not EEE too.
All that said, this being a House story it is in keeping with cannon to run rough shot over time lines, treatments, and general medical facts. ;)