Part A:

You touched me

Chase was warm. Abnormally warm, but Eric Foreman knew this was nothing to be concerned about. Some people are just warmer than others, and Chase happened to be one.

This only made the non-problem of Chase-being-warm worse. Not because Foreman was hoping for Chase to come down with something, but because he knew it wasn't a problem, without a word being spoken.

You touched me, you liked it

He had previous knowledge, knowledge that he had no business knowing, knowledge he shouldn't, wouldn't know, and every shuffle of Chase's unnaturally warm arm made against his own was a maddening reminder: You touched me, you liked it and now you're thinking about touching me again.

There was nothing to be done, though, personal space was a laughable concept in economy class, signed away the moment the airline ticket was purchased, along with any sense of privacy or dignity. He could curl into himself, but he imagined that would only bring attention to his discomfort and the last thing he wanted was Chase thinking about him thinking about his warm-non-problem. He could shift to the side, but that would jostle the third person in their row, a young Asian boy who had been decent enough to slip on headphones and sleep, and Foreman really didn't want to risk that changing.

You touched me

Normal people, Foreman thought, wouldn't have this problem. As evidenced by the great majority that had drifted off when the cabin's lights dimmed; normal people took advantage of a darkness to sleep. Foreman got to sit in the dark and wish for a normal-heated companion, one that would do the same, instead of occupying himself with utterly meaningless tasks, all ones that required light; crosswords, sudokus, word searches.

you liked it

Chase then spent a near hour alternating between making a pen twirl between his fingers and folding, then ripping a napkin pressed with the airline's logo. If Foreman had wanted an ever growing pile of tiny, white squares he probably would've been enthusiastic. He didn't, though, and found his irritation growing until he was personally affronted by each new rip.

"Are you going to be done any time soon?" he decided to ask Chase, because even in that tone, it was better than demanding he turn his light off.

He raised his eyebrows, sweeping the delicate fruits of his pointless labor into a neat pile at the center of his tray. "I thought you said you didn't sleep during flights," he muttered, but reached upward and switched his light off anyway.

They sat for a moment in the dark, Foreman shifting into a more sleepable position. A flight attendant coughed into his fist as he walked by, and Chase leaned back with a sigh, their shoulders brushing.

You touched me, it felt good, you liked it

Foreman reached up, flicking the light back on. "How can you not be bored?"

He blinked in the sudden light, then shrugged, looking mildly amused. "I've made this trip before."

Foreman stared at Chase, watched in the meager light as he leaned back in his seat and molested his pen for no discernible reason while he stared back, because it was, sadly, the most interesting thing happening in his visual range.

The next movie wasn't showing for another six hours and they'd both finished off the books they'd brought along about an hour after take off. The agreement to trade off only made sense; if Foreman had known, however, that Chase would to be nothing but amused by My Soul Has Grown Deep, he wouldn't've bothered. Instead he waited until the sixth snort to rip it out of the blond's hands, tucking it away into the safety of his duffle bag. Because the only thing worse than having someone not laugh at something that was supposed to be funny was having them laugh at something that was serious.

It was only reasonable then, that Chase had denied him his own book, The Gun Seller, which was surprisingly addictive and now taunting Foreman from the pocket of a leather jacket sitting in Chase's lap.

"Think we should review the case?" Foreman offered blandly, combing his mind to remember the details. There weren't many; all Chase had let on in Jersey, at least to Foreman and Cameron, was something about a relation named Peter whose situation was too unstable for him to be moved.

"Not particularly," he muttered, suddenly quite surly as he stared out the window. Obviously the blackened sky would provide better company that Foreman could ever hope to.

"So it was important enough to convince House to let you drag me halfway across the globe to help, but not worth discussing along the way?"

He just shrugged, shoving the pen back in his mouth and Foreman rolled his eyes.

It wasn't the fact that Chase had idiosyncrasies that got to him; it was the fact that he had so damn many and no one cared. He twitched, he slumped, he chewed on things, rarely made eye contact, and still, somehow, worked under the top diagnostician in North America. Foreman had invested in prep courses, read books on proper interview etiquette, gone to seminars. Chase didn't even know his primary colors, if his orange tie and pink-tinted shirt was any indication. And they worked the same job.

Chase hadn't even stood when Foreman was first introduced as his coworker. Common sense sites eye contact, firm handshake and a repeating of the person's first and last name as the minimum for such a formal environment. After a strong, friendly handshake from Cameron, Foreman turned to see Chase smile broadly from behind a crossword, like he knew some great secret and it was hilarious, twirl a pen between his teeth and say, "Welcome aboard!"

Foreman had actually assumed Chase was Cameron's visiting boyfriend until he shrugged on a lab coat before leaving the office.

"Why not Cameron?" Foreman asked suddenly.

"What?"

"House said you could bring either of us along. Why me, why not Cameron?"

Chase looked amused. "And who would you pick? Between me and her?"

Foreman shifted; the smart thing to do would be to take the fact that he was the obvious choice and let it die, but it wasn't like there was any better way to waste their time. "Cameron is a great doctor."

"When she wants to be, yeah," he said with entirely too much superiority. "But I don't want her finding out Peter used to run over kittens or something and holding back treatment until he apologizes."

"That's not fair," Foreman said, irritated by the haughty tone. "She does her job."

"Being fair to Cameron isn't a pressing concern of mine right now," Chase said, flatly. "And I didn't want to bring someone who only does her job when it makes her feel good."

"Cameron does what she thinks is right; you just do what you're told. Which do think is going to make a better doctor in the long run?" Foreman asked.

"It also makes her someone I don't want taking care of my family," Chase returned in the same, short tone. "I'll give her a ring in twenty years if I need a hand."

Foreman rolled his eyes and turned back to the much less idiotic sleeping Asian boy.

It wasn't that Foreman thought Chase was a horrible doctor, and most days he found the red ties and yellow shirts more amusing than anything else; but it was always there, licking at the back of his mind. Chase was the one thing that had been drummed into Foreman's head he couldn't be, since he told his high school guidance counselor he might want to go into medicine: nothing more and nothing less than a good doctor. He would have to do more than his job, he'd been told. He had to be polished, he had to act the part before they'd ever give him the role. There are tons of gifted people out there, to become something great, a man has to work on his presentation.

He would bet money Chase had never heard anything remotely resembling that speech, or anything about work ethic. It was as though he went for a walk one day, wandered into PPTH, decided he wanted to be a doctor, camped out House's office, refused to leave, and House was just too lazy to make him go.

Foreman had it all together. Foreman knew the right people and went to the right places, while Chase straddled the line of mysteriously standoffish and antisocial asshole, ignored everyone but House and did whatever it was he liked with his spare time. Drawing hearts around a picture of House, maybe. And still, at conferences with west coast teams, Chase got a warm, welcoming handshake from various experts from various fields, while Foreman got a cool nod. It was maddening, and no one's father is famous enough to excuse that.

Still. He had a point; if it was his family on the line, at the moment, Chase would be much higher up on the list than Cameron, and he guessed that said something.

Seriously though -- as if there were some I Came From a Rich Family, Too handshake, some club that Foreman would never, ever be able to enter and never be given the chance of understanding.

It was something Foreman had accepted years ago, and he wasn't sure what it was in Chase that brought it out so strongly; his most petty and childish reactions. Why, when the mood hit, admitting Chase was right left such a nasty taste in his mouth. He'd worked with nastier, ruder people without flinching, and even if the Australian hadn't worked as hard as Foreman, or Cameron, or anyone else in the hospital to get there, that didn't make him any worse than them.

There was certainly no way to rationalize that stab of irritation that never failed to hit whenever he looked up to see Chase slumping lazily on House's couch, while they waited for test results. The fact that there was really nothing else to be expected of him didn't the elevate his annoyance, or the urge to roll his eyes every time the sunlight in House's office turned blond hair gold, or how, on especially terse days he wanted to spit out, "It's Foreman," every time it got butchered to Fohmin.

You touched me

Chase brought out too much, for whatever reason. Foreman preferred indifference to hate and anger; those had no place in a workplace and he did his best to be a professional acting out his profession. He wasn't obsessed like House, or protective like Cameron, or attached like Chase. He did his job, the end. Chase brought out too much, even before that night, so in retrospect, he was probably the worst person to make a mistake with.

Anyone else, and the details would already be fading, he was sure. Not dancing at the corner of his eye, creeping up every time he dropped his guard.

Foreman, determinedly, did not indulge in the details.

You liked it, it felt good

Foreman, with a sigh, indulged in the details.

They'd been at a conference, Cameron had been working up nerve to introduce herself to Dr. Stone ("Oh be quiet, he does not look like House!") for an hour before dragging him off to her room, while Cuddy, Wilson and House reminisced on a level the rest of them couldn't dream of reaching without ten more years of history. That left Foreman and Chase to raid the bar.

Which they had.

Enthusiastically.

That, dictated by all the laws of proper storytelling, led to other things. Fingers growing clumsy and wet with spilled alcohol and what doctor sucked his fingers clean instead of using a napkin? The same sort that doesn't protest when he's getting dragged into Foreman's hotel room, the sort that suck at wrestling and have extremely ticklish inner thighs.

They'd been too drunk to figure out the complexities of buttons and zippers, but if Foreman's memory hadn't failed him -- and that was a pretty big if -- they'd found a pleasant enough way to get off, rubbing and fumbling, Chase worshiping Foreman's neck sloppily, and the tremendous sense of accomplishment as he made Chase tremble and come beneath him had gotten Foreman off almost immediately.

It was only after the heady rush of pleasure had faded enough for his mind to form coherent thought, after they were breathing calmly and their bodies cooled that he realized exactly what he'd been after, why he'd been so desperate to drag Chase to the ground. He'd been trying to prove an obscure point; one that he never would've brought up if he hadn't been drunk, one that he normally let speak for itself.

He shouldn't have let House's constant belittling get to him, but he did, and who was better to feel the brunt of his need to prove superiority than the Australian House Jr.? It'd been a contest to see who was better, to see who would submit first, who was dominate, one that he'd won with very little protest.

Chase didn't seem aware of any of that though, actually laughing groggily when he woke the next morning. "Oops," he'd snorted, and sat up, buttoning his shirt as best he could with three missing buttons. He left for his own room, and life continued on in his world, the only place where a man could sleep with both his coworkers and somehow keep a perfectly functional work environment without batting an eye.

Foreman would've been sure he'd suffered spontaneous memory loss, but no, it'd been just as easy for him to carry on after Cameron. As if they'd done nothing more than a rousing game of checkers. He didn't even have a smug air of a won conquest, or any rueful bitterness that was expected of a one night stand; because everyone always says it means nothing, but there was always something. . . . except with Chase. It was boggling. Foreman wondered if he just slept with whoever he could whenever he got the chance, and the idea disturbed him entire too much, because it disturbed him at all.

"Alright then, let's play a game." Chase's voice was a violent jerk to the present, and he knew he had to've been staring back guiltily, as his mind had suddenly, and quite horrifically, decided to replay the throaty gasp Chase pressed against his shoulder as he came, and didn't show any signs of stopping.

"Huh?" Foreman croaked out.

"A game. A two year old male, sudden slurring, poor muscle control and mood swings."

He forced his mind to clear. "Any head injury?"

"Nope," Chase said, smirking around that god damned pen.

"Any relevant family history?"

"They say they're clean."

Foreman frowned; "Are they?"

"That's cheating."

"How?"

"You wouldn't know for sure if you were there unless you were psychic," Chase said simply. "And in my game you're not psychic."

"You've been around House too long," Foreman said. "SDS?"

Chase looked confused more than unimpressed, "a two year old."

"I've seen stranger things."

"Not this time," he said, as if he were humoring Foreman.

"Ataxia." Wild stabs in the dark never hurt anyone.

"Not stranger."

"Ataxia is not as strange as SDS."

Chase rolled his eyes. "The MRI comes back squeaky clean."

"I managed to get a two year old still enough for one without a sedative?" Foreman said with exaggerated surprise. "I thought you said I didn't have any supernatural abilities."

"You get one," Chase allowed. "The ability to wait until a fictional child is asleep to perform an MRI."

Foreman let the fact that allowing someone with a potential head injury sleep was unheard of drop, "what's the white cell count?"

"Slightly elevated, but he has a cold."

"Is the cold related?"

"I don't know, is it?"

Foreman sighed. "Alright, I give him chicken soup and wait a night."

"The symptoms disappear," Chase said, nodding. "Good job."

Foreman stared; "it was related to the fever?"

"Not at all," he said.

"So treatment for a common cold is the cure for three serious neurological problems?"

"Not normally, I don't imagine," Chase said, looking terribly pleased with himself.

"What was it?"

"You'll kick yourself when you figure it out."

"You're not going to tell me?" Foreman asked.

Chase cocked his head to the side as he debated. "I'll answer yes and no questions."

"Was it an infection?"

"Nope."

"A progressive disease?" Foreman asked.

"That chicken soup cured?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You're making this up, aren't you?"

"I was there when it happened."

"I thought you said it was a fictional kid."

"It's based off a kid who had those symptoms, whose MRI would've come back clean."

"And you were there. You didn't just hear this from someone else?"

"Wouldn't matter if I had, it's not like I made up a fake disease. You'll recognize what caused the symptoms as soon as you figure it out."

"What caused the symptoms," Foreman repeated. "So all it did was mimic symptoms, it wasn't an actual disease."

"Well, every disease 'just' causes symptoms."

"No, symptoms are the side-effect of the actual disease."

"Yeah, if diseases were actual sentient beings with actual goals in mind," he said, rolling his eyes. "Diseases enter a body and muck it up, creating symptoms."

"A window breaking is a symptom of a rock hitting it, not the actual rock. It's two separate things."

"I never said they weren't. I'm saying A happens because of B and it's pointless to separate the two."

"Pointless if A always caused B and B always happened because of A --"

"And they do," Chase sounded remarkably close to irritation, "It's just sometimes B sometimes looks like C and--"

"The same problem rarely ever presents the exact same way twice."

"They always present the exact same way. It's the person that it's presenting in that's the variable, the way each body fights A off changes how A shows up. It's not like diseases change their tactics for each new person."

Foreman stared at Chase, wondering if he had managed to hide his extreme and utter stupidity until this moment, or if this was a sudden assault. "Diseases are constantly changed by their environment, they get stronger or weaker--"

"But the disease will always try to do what it always does--"

"Chase."

"What?" Chase asked, sharply.

"We're splitting hairs," Foreman said calmly. "And waking people up."

Chase blinked, glanced around and the slowly stirring bodies in the plane, and a rueful smile spread up the side of his face as he eased back into his chair. "At least we killed," he glanced at his watch, "two minutes."

"That's it?" Foreman's shoulders slumped just slightly. "Time flies when you're having fun."

"And crawls when you're bored out of your mind."

"I thought you weren't bored."

"I wasn't," Chase said. "You distracted me."

"From ripping napkins."

"Better than watching you stare at my lap."

"I wasn't --" Foreman sputtered, having just tore his gaze away from the book Chase was giving no indication of sharing any time soon.

Chase wasn't listening to his feeble protest anymore though, which was good because Foreman wasn't sure how he was going to end them. "When's the movie?" he asked idly, now attempting to make the poor, victimized pen twirl on his tray.

"A while."

Chase gave up on making his pen dance and was now trying to balance it on his upper lip. After eleven or twelve tries, he stopped with a sigh.

"We could always argue some more," he suggested.

"I know this is going to sound crazy, but we could just talk."

"And do you have a topic in mind, Eric?" It was said lightly, but the way he pronounced Eric was oddly clipped, like it was a word in another language that he didn't know the meaning to; he was just mimicking a sound.

"I'm not sure, Robert," Foreman said, wondering if the name sounded just as foreign on his tongue. "Odds are we have something in common that's not medically related."

Chase appeared to be thinking, gathering his bits of napkin into an open palm and shoving them into a pocket. "Ever been rock climbing?" he asked, idly.

"No. Watch basketball?"

"Not especially. Snowboarding? Skiing?"

"Nope. Football?"

"The American massacre, or actual game?"

"No would've sufficed," Foreman glowered slightly. "Seen any good movies?"

Chase snorted, "No, but about how this lovely weather we've been having?"

"It's dead winter back in Jersey," Foreman said, and by the other's unimpressed stare, had clearly missed a great joke.

They stared each other for a moment, and the silence that stretched between them was awkward and stuffy. A body a row ahead of them shifted in sleep.

"I think we've beat the odds," Chase said, finally.

"Looks that way," Foreman said, although he was sure they shared some common ground, even if he had no idea how to get there. Chase wasn't interested in giving any directions, though, turning his gaze to his fingernails and no doubt thinking very deep thoughts.

Eventually the person seated in front of Foreman woke and stood, obviously dizzy for a moment in sleep, then shuffled off to the bathroom. She was on her way back by the time Foreman was bored enough to try and instigate conversation again.

"Alright," Foreman said. "During my residency in California, I was on the night shift in the E.R. when this woman came in, suffering from intense cramping. I do a pelvic exam and find this massive infection and swelling."

Chase winced, "charming."

"Really. She was clean, though, for every test I could think of," he said. "Finally the x-rays come back in and there's this huge obstruction."

"What, a tumor?"

"A sock."

Chase glanced to the side, then back. "Say again?"

"She'd shoved a sock up there and forgot about it."

He looked horrified, opening his mouth twice before settling on, "how long had it been up there?"

"Five weeks? It wasn't in a good shape, and when I pulled it out, started breaking apart," he said. Chase stared instead of laughed, and Foreman noticed the blond's tight grip on the armrests. "Come on, having a residency in Jersey had to've been just as bad."

"Actually, it was in Maine. And no. I spent most of my time doing paperwork."

"How'd you get in your hours?"

"I lied because it was boring as hell and the attending lied because I was crap at paperwork and he wanted me out of there."

Foreman stared at the smile that he guessed was supposed to be charming, calculating all the ways that was illegal. "Have you done anything to deserve where you are now?"

"Probably not according to your standards," Chase said, plainly showing what he thought of such standards with the off-hand tone. Foreman wondered if the ability to remind a person why you were unbearable in a single sentence was something he'd picked up from House, or just one that the bastard had helped polish.

After another moment of their most awkward silence yet, which was really saying something, Chase sniffed, reached forward and pulled his headset out of the seat in front of him, and plugged it in.

The rest of the cabin was quiet enough that Foreman could make out faint bars of 'Hakuna Mattata' before Chase slipped the headphones on, singling the apparent end of their conversation.

Foreman rolled his eyes, unsure if the rudeness was intentional or if Chase was just that dense.

A weight dropped abruptly in his lap, and Foreman glanced down to see the cover of The Gun Seller staring back up at him.

Chase continued to stare resolutely out the window, though, giving no indication he was still aware of Foreman's presence.

He sighed, paging through the novel to find the passage he'd left off on, resolutely not noticing the loss of warmth against his side now that Chase had shifted away and crossed his arms.

There hadn't been much more conversation beyond a mumbled 'excuse me' by the time they flew over Sydney, which looked disappointingly like almost every other moderately populated city in America. The buildings were sleeping giants, pressed against the steadily darkening sky, spaced farther apart than the ones in most cities like Jersey or New York, and probably not as tall, but for some reason the city gave of the sense of strength, importance. Instead of millions crammed in and scurrying about, it looked steady, obviously not in need of that many people to thrive.

Chase had fallen asleep sometime between The Stapler and 101 Dalmatians, and wasn't very pleased about waking, glaring and groggy as they touched down. If he'd been up to it, Foreman would made a joke about crankiness and naps, but the only thing he was up for was getting off the plane and onto solid ground, and then, hopefully, onto a solid mattress with some solid pillows and blankets.

They disembarked without much preamble, and Foreman was led through the airport with the speed and grace of a sleepwalker. Chase knew where he was heading, but he was sure they would've been lost if he hadn't traced the same path so many times before.

Chase wasn't any different in his homeland, didn't look particularly happy to be there, and Foreman supposed it was foolish to expect a lighter step, for him to move with more confidence. The man left the island for a reason, one that probably hadn't changed.

There was no argument over who was going to drive the rental car, although it was probably the single most bizarre sensation Foreman had ever felt, to sit in the driver's side, but not. Chase didn't even wake up, really, for the drive to the hotel, and the combination of being on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, with a driver that was too tired to communicate in anything more than grunts made for a very lively drive.

In fact, the only time Foreman was sure Chase had fully woken was when they'd actually walked inside the hotel and discovered a very nasty shock.

"Check again."

"Repetition with expectation of different results," Foreman muttered, while the man with 'Tom' written on a plastic tag on his chest sighed, complying with Chase's pointless demand with fast, curt keystrokes.

"What?"

"The definition of insanity."

Chase didn't quite glare, but his eyes were narrow and almost accusing. Like a parent; he almost expected him to hiss, 'you know better than that!'

"I apologize sir, but there are still no reservations under either of those names," Tom said, a shrug his only explanation, and once again Foreman had to quell the ridiculous urge to inform Chase that hey, Tom had an Australian accent, too!

"House got the rooms?" Foreman asked.

"He said he would, but I'd bet Cameron took care of it," he said, the exhaustion slurring his words into just one, miserable mumble.

"Check under wombat," Foreman said.

Chase perked up, "or spade."

"Or blondie."

"He's never called me blondie," Chase said, brow creasing.

"To your face," Foreman said. "Anything?"

"Not under those names. Although," Tom said, eyes brightening suddenly, "there was a message phoned in for Gidget and . . . Moondoggie?"

"That's us," Foreman said, and quelled Chase's baffled look with a muttered, "you don't want to know."

Tom fumbled a bit with something under the counter, pulled out a folded sheet of paper. "And whatever your friend said nearly made our day clerk cry."

Chase nabbed the paper and read it over, but whatever he found was enough to make him freeze, his hand slowly drifting to his forehead, as if blocking off an impending headache.

"What?" Foreman asked.

The message slid wordlessly across the counter.

Sorry, but Sci-Fi geeks nabbed all the rooms under five thousand a night (that's still a shit load in American), and we just don't love you enough for that. Have fun under the stars of the outback!
-- xoxoxox House

"I don't suppose five thousand in American is doable?"

"It's about four thousand. Give or take a few hundred," Chase said weakly. "Up to splitting?"

"I'm not spending two thousand a night unless the room's coming back with me."

"I don't think you can -- " Tom's protest was cut short by two dark glares, and he shuffled about five feet away to a stool, proceeding to pretending he couldn't see or hear them anymore now that he had his back to them.

Chase's sigh was so pitiful, for a moment Foreman thought he was going to suggest just camping out in the lobby. "What's the plan, then?" he asked instead.

"I kind of assumed this was your show."

"Right," he sighed, and moved his duffle bag onto his shoulder with one great heave. "Back to the car."

The rental's engine was ridiculously quiet, and neither bothered themselves with switching on the radio, so the ride to wherever it was they were going was done in relative silence. Thankfully, Chase seemed more aware for this drive, although it amounted to the same level of safety as their first trip, what with the steadily narrowing, and poorly lit street. Slowly buildings became freckled with trees, then trees were freckled with buildings. Any manmade object would've been a startling sight by the time the abrupt right came, surprising them both.

"Where are we headed?" Foreman asked, when it looked more and more likely that hew as simply taking House's advice, driving aimlessly into the outback.

He stiffened, and Foreman wondered if he'd forgotten he wasn't taking this trip alone. "My old place."

He glanced around; it certainly didn't seem like they were headed toward any housing district.

He was about to say so when, abruptly, a large building popped out of the horizon, huge and square and very out of place on the flat landscape. It took a moment for Foreman to realize that immense block was Chase's 'old place' and not a mall or school or some other public building that homed large amounts of people.

"And you wanted to go to a hotel?"

"Yeah, well," Chase muttered. "We don't even know if there'll be water and electricity."

The tone quite plainly said he was not happy with how things had developed, and Foreman saw no point in agitating him any further, so the car was silent once again for the ride up to the massive driveway.

Chase got out without a word, not bothering to give the house they were at much of a second look. He wondered if Chase really had forgotten that he wasn't alone, pulling his luggage from the backseat and wandering toward the front porch stoically. Foreman followed in suit, reaching for his own luggage and politely waiting to hear the sounds of a code being punched in before he followed, but it was silent and when he looked up he saw Chase pulling something free of the gutter.

"You kept a spare key in the gutter?" Foreman boggled; it was a pathetic step above a fake rock.

Chase shrugged, carefully separating the key from the tape that had held it steady for ten odd years, then tossing the worn, gray tape into the bushes that surrounded the walkway.

"If I hadn't, we really would be stuck in the great outdoors," he said, unlocking and pushing the door open in one move.

A beat later and the porch was brought to life by light smearing out through the still open doorway. Foreman followed, passing plants that lined the walkway, their various stages of death emphasized by the ridiculously stylish pots they once flourished in.

Chase was rich, it'd been one of the first things Foreman had learned about him. He was rich, and he'd always been rich. From his flawlessly straightened teeth down to the perfect tan he treated himself to every break, on trips to not just any Alps but The Alps, he couldn't be confused for anything but.

So Foreman really shouldn't have been surprised by the extravagance that waited in the Chase home; he nearly dropped his luggage. It looked more like a hotel then the hotel they had just been at; massive and expensive and generally awkward to live in. A wide, marble stairwell was the first thing to greet them, but Chase ignored it and moved right, down three steps and flicked on the light of a room that was too big to be used for anything indoors except conferences and operas. A stone fireplace took up an entire wall and could've homed a bonfire without much difficulty. The opposing wall was dark, with something flickering across the top of it -- another moment of staring and Foreman realized it was a wall of glass, displaying the moonlit ocean that was, apparently, the Chases' backyard.

"Ever get cold enough to use that?" he asked, gesturing toward the fireplace as he dropped down the steps carefully, as if the blood red carpet would sense the unworthiness in his shoes and toss him backward.

"Not that I can remember," Chase mumbled, standing in the center of the room, staring out at the beach and looking as out of place as Foreman felt.

The room was still furnished, which came as another surprise. Elaborate paintings with equally elaborate wooden frames hung from the two normal walls, chairs and small end tables sat a respectful distance away from sofas, but from what Chase had said, and especially what the layers of dust were whispering, the place had to have been empty for years.

"How long has it been since you've been here?" Foreman asked, watching him meander --aimlessly? --through the room.

"Seven years."

". . . It's been empty since?"

Chase shrugged. "My father must've come down occasionally, if he was still paying the bills," he didn't sound as though he were talking to anyone in particular, just stating a fact to hear it said.

Foreman waited before asking, "I thought he died a few months ago."

He looked at Foreman directly for the first time since getting into the rental car, snapping out of whatever trance he'd been in. "Yeah. We usually paid a few years in advance."

Foreman shook his head, wondering at the level of luxury a person would have to live in to leave a place like this for occasions, even if they were just that special. He guessed the dark red leather of the furniture was appropriately expensive, would probably cost him more than a month's salary, possibly more than a year's, and he couldn't bring himself to be outraged at the fact that they were bought probably as an afterthought, as a 'why not?' and now just sat in an abandoned, dusty house. He was too boggled by it. It was absurd.

Chase had moved to an oak end table and was pawing through its drawer without any indication of what he expected Foreman to do while he waited, so he didn't see anything wrong with meandering toward a collection of frames on the opposite table.

Two blond people stared back at him, once he wiped away an impressive sheen of dust, and looked very normal. Not at all like they belonged in a home like this. The smaller blond person, Foreman guessed was Chase, stared back with a surprised smile, and a girl with an unmistakable resemblance stood awkwardly beside him, shielding her eyes from the sun.

"Didn't know you had a sister," he decided on after a moment, placing the picture back on the end table carefully.

"That's my mum," Chase said shortly, pocketing whatever it was that he'd grabbed from the table.

"Your mom," he repeated, eyes widening, as if that would bring this picture into focus -- he was seeing it wrong; she didn't look barely seventeen.

It didn't work. The girl looked even younger by comparison when one remembered the man who he'd originally thought to be her father became a husband.

"On the second floor there's a couple guest bedrooms," Chase said instead of answering the unspoken question, passing by Foreman stiffly on his way for the stairwell. "sleep wherever."