In later years, Robert Chase would remember the week following his mother's death and subsequent funeral in varying detail. The main feeling that presided over Robert during that time was confusion. Confusion, mainly aimed at his father. Except for the brief glimpse of him, that Rober had gleamed from the room he occupied at the hospital when his mother was alive and her funeral, Robert had neither heard from or seen his father in months - and then, suddenly - there he was. He sat in his study, occupied his place at the table and went through the motions of a night cap before bed - as if he had never been away. He did not address his absence to Robert - nor take any notice of him at all. Robert was expected to keep out of sight, which he did, apart from one time.
After much deliberation, Robert had decided to speak to his father, what he would say, he did not know. He just needed to speak, to ebb the flow of thoughts that whirled around in his head that hit the hardest at night, saying that it was his fault his mother was dead. He knocked softly onto the door of his father's study, waited, and pushed the door open. He stood on the threshold of his father's domain, waiting to be noticed. After several agonising moments, Rowan turned to his son.
"Well?" Rowan's slurred pronunciation, discarded dinner jacket, and loosened tie gave Robert the immediate impression that his father was not sober - he did not need the evidence that his eyes gave him - Rowan's hands were gripped solidly around a brandy glass - the decanter beside his elbow was half full.
The first thought that entered Robert's mind was 'Is this my fault too?', and it almost made him run away. Before he could stop himself, he found himself asking, in a very small voice, "Why are you here?".
Rowan did not respond immediately. Instead, he raised his empty brandy glass to his eye and looked through the glass at the distorted shape of the boy. As if son had become a disease that he must manage, and he was looking through a microscope.
"I am here to look after my assets." It was the impersonal tone of a doctor who had never failed.
Robert nodded, not knowing what that meant – but knowing, sub-consciously that he had mutated in some way - he had become but a diagnosis for his father.
"In - in that case - may i continue to go seminary school?" He asked, in a shaky voice, looking at anything but his father. Hoping that, if his father could not forgive him, then maybe God would.
The effect those words had on Rowan were instantaneous. He slammed the brandy glass onto the desk, breaking it into tiny little pieces. Pieces which resembled his son's shattered heart.
The next day, Robert was sent to Sydney and enrolled in boarding school.
All thoughts of forgiveness were eroded from his mind.
Robert would once again voice the question of "why are you here?" to his father, ten years later. Once again, their meeting would be shadowed by another's presence - the ghost of the woman who had connected their lives. She had been both beautiful, dangerous – and as intoxicating as the alcohol she consumed in dizzying amounts. Their meeting would also be shadowed by another, more immediate presence – one who was intent upon finding out the problem between Robert and his father.
Robert hated them all then.
He disliked Cameron's nosiness, lecturing him about forgiveness – acting as a stark reminder of what he was lacking – faith in God's ability to forgive. He hated House for baiting him – trying to diagnose everything and everyone. Worse yet, Robert hated himself for caving and telling House what his father had done or, not done – during his childhood – laying his life onto petri-dishes that House could examine and judge. Most of all, he hated the tangles of words that fell on the deaf ears of his father, the mountains and valleys of regrets piled so high and so deep that he was drowning in them – with no Shepherd to guide him.