Chase made his way toward House's office at a snail's pace. Hopefully the delay of a few minutes would be enough time to get an emergency page and he would have to postpone. As he got closer he kept looking at his pager. Come on ICU, don't let me down. There would be no such luck though as he arrived and was spotted by House.
"Sorry, no emergencies will take you away from this. I made sure the ICU would leave you alone." House said as Chase stood in the doorway.
"You hate this as much as I do." Chase slowly entered looking down with his hands in his pockets. "I figured you would welcome any hope of procrastination."
"Your review is the one that got me into this mess. You knew I would overlook your fellowship expiring, but how long did you think Cuddy would have?"
Chase quietly tried to hide his guilty feeling. I'm really in for it now. Maybe I will get a less cranky boss at my next job.
"We end this now. Take your seat." House pointed to the chair in front of his desk. As soon as Chase sat down he handed him a packet. "You read, questions after, understand?"
Chase nodded and grabbed the papers. Take it in stride, make it boring for him. He took a breath and started reading.
Even though he had a week to prepare for this, Chase could not have possibly anticipated what was on the pages ahead. The first paragraph delivered an intense blow of disbelief, but he quickly calmed down knowing he was just getting started. With each sentence though, the puzzled look on his face and feeling of shock continued to become more and more intense. He kept shifting positions in his seat hoping that would bring some relief, but it didn't. He grew more and more uncomfortable as he turned each page. Half way through he had to pause for a few seconds to control himself.
House noticed Chase's long pause. "I knew I was going to make one of you cry. I should have figured it would be you."
Chase said nothing and continued reading. The break was exactly what he needed to get through the rest of the document. He noticed that House was watching with delight every moment of his angst. Finally, he finished reading and slowly placed his review down on House's desk. He was too stunned to speak and felt completely overwhelmed. He looked at House with a "what the hell was that?" gaze.
"Any questions?" House asked with a blank look.
"Very funny House. Where is the real review?" Chase did not believe a single word he read.
House handed him the last page of the packet and a pen. "Sign here."
Chase continued to glare at House with powerful skepticism. "Okay, I'll play along." He grabbed the page and pen from House and abruptly signed. He made the signature neater than normal so everyone knew it was indeed his official approval.
"You get an added bonus over the others. You get an extra page." House handed him another sheet of paper from his desk set aside especially for this moment.
Chase with continued cynicism took the paper from House and started reading the letter. His eyes shot wide open and his heart sank deep as he got through the entire contents. "My God, this is for real." Chase's defiant look now changed to one of shocked disbelief as he stared down his mentor.
"Time to go through your options. You'll need a little time off to work things out with the INS."
Chase slowly nodded in agreement and silently left the office visibly shaken by the entire experience.
House smiled. He did enjoy the moments when he could personally blow apart a reality to smithereens.
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Chase went into the locker room so no one could see him fall apart. He reread the extra piece of paper that was absent from Foreman and Cameron's review. He didn't think House would ever do this. He never once believed it. This time, he let a tear or two slip by.
He was there only a few minutes before Cameron and Foreman found him. Upon hearing their approach, Chase quickly wiped away any evidence of his distress.
"Here you are." Cameron sat next to him. She looked into his weary and troubled eyes. "I can see it didn't go well. No wonder you didn't try to find us."
"Come on, how bad can it be?" Foreman grabbed the review that was sitting next to Chase on the bench.
"You really don't want to read that." Chase advised.
"Fair is fair. You read ours." Foreman started reading.
"No, actually I didn't, but go ahead." Chase let him continue.
Foreman got the same look of shock and surprise mirroring Chase when he was back in House's office. As he progressed through the pages though, he was also holding back a little rage. He had to be careful since he had to be fair to Chase. House did this, not him. Still, he couldn't believe what he was reading.
Cameron saw Foreman's looks and got very curious but worried. "Give me that. Is it that bad?"
As she started reading, Foreman left. He had seen enough.
"What is House up to this time?" Cameron asked as she leafed through the pages.
"I don't know." Chase was still shell shocked.
Cameron started reading from the review. "Dr. Chase without a doubt has one of the greatest diagnostic minds I have ever witnessed in my 20 plus years as a physician…His incredible ability to think outside the box and be open to all possibilities has given him an excellent track record with proper diagnosis…He intuitively understands behavior in patients and his team which allows him to uncover important information in a proper yet respectful way…His beside manner with patients stellar and he always rates highest on the team in the satisfaction surveys…His loss to this team and diagnostics would be detrimental."
Cameron was amazed by what she read. "He gave you the highest rating in every category. A review cannot be more perfect than this."
"Yeah, and I kept waiting the entire time for the "just kidding" part where he shows me the real document that would go on to Cuddy. I read this and got very uneasy thinking that I was yet another victim of a House cruel joke. Trust me he had a great time watching me struggle. Then he handed me this paper and I realized he already spoke to Cuddy."
He handed the letter to Cameron. She gasped as she read. "This is an offer to be an attending physician for the Department of Diagnostic Medicine under Dr. Gregory House. You would be the first attending under House. No one has ever gotten this far."
"Yeah, this is the real deal. I wasn't expecting this."
"You think everything he said in your review was for real or just so the hospital couldn't refuse you a position?" Cameron asked.
"It can't be real. You and I know better. That is why it is so disturbing. I still don't know what he thinks of me as a doctor. Once again, House gets his fun at the expense of me. He did do something extraordinary though and I benefited as well. That is even more disturbing."
Cameron smiled at Chase's distress. "What do you expect? This is House. He is never predictable."
------------------------------------------
"What the hell are you doing? You think this is all a joke?" Cameron yelled as she stormed into House's office.
"What could you be talking about?" House faked ignorance.
"You criticize Foreman and I back and forth, and then Chase, the one person who you constantly put down the most is the one you rated excellent without any bad comments? I thought sucking up was so beneath you. You made him look like employee of the year."
"How did you know what I said about Foreman and Chase?" He asked his question with phony naivety.
"Why did you give Chase that review?"
"Two reasons. First, I needed to justify creating an attending position in my department. That has always been a dream of mine." House gave a fake cry while pretending to wipe a tear from his eye.
Cameron glanced at him with intense disapproval, her arms crossed, obviously not buying into his act.
House continued, "Second, I bet Wilson $100 that all of you would read each other's reviews. Since I knew that Chase was the one who thought his review would be the worst, it was only logical that his would be the surprise." He wore a huge wicked grin on his face and was highly amused by this moment.
"You're incredible," Cameron said angrily.
"Who told you?" House fired back. "Sorry, I've used that one before. I need to brush up on my comebacks."
"So, does that mean in four months when my fellowship is up that I will get a perfect review? How will you justify that position?"
"You only get a perfect review if you have earned it. That is why your review was the harshest. If I gave Foreman a review like yours, he would dismiss it as me being a jerk. Hell, he is probably doing that now with a mediocre review. If I gave Chase the horrific review he likely deserved, he would just accept the abuse and not do anything about it. Where is the fun in that? I know that you will take my bad comments seriously and work harder. It all goes back to knowing how to motivate people."
"So fairness is completely lost then?" Cameron snipped.
"Don't give me your lectures on how unfair an unfair process is. You know this place way better than that. Have you considered that maybe for once Chase deserved something to go his way? Isn't giving him a reward for over two years of intense abuse and scrutiny somewhat fair?"
"Foreman and I were blasted for not knowing our team members. Chase didn't get a comment at all and he knows hardly anything about us."
"He knows way more than you think. It helps that he has the ear of every gossipy nurse in this hospital. He knows how to get information and what to do with it most of the time. He does that with the patients better than you or Foreman. So he doesn't share his personal history with you. He doesn't have to. You have to get it out of him, which is exactly how it works with the patients."
Cameron looked at him mad as hell, but unable to argue with that comment. She had a huge look of pouting on her face.
"So, while you sit here and have your little hissy fit over how you were so wronged, I've got to find Wilson and collect on my bet."
Cameron stood in the office continuing to sulk while House limped off feeling great that he was right again.
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Chase silently entered House's office a few days after their bizarre meeting. He had mixed feelings about the attending position. Normally he would have jumped on it right away, but the review was still unsettling and he felt the position was hardly earned. Something just wasn't right about this.
House was sitting at his desk reading some new journal. Chase started talking without giving House a chance to acknowledge him first. "Look, the glowing review was really not necessary. Excessive compliments are not your style and your bet is settled. At worse I'm sure I could have found an Intensivist position in another department."
"Everything I said in that review was true," House noted. "Yes I did gloss over some, or actually all, of your weak areas, but when it comes to the aspects of working your team you are more skilled than the others. You have all the important qualities it takes to use a team for all they've got. You don't care what people think, you intuitively understand human behavior, you are capable of being both devious and sensitive which gives you a rare gift with manipulation that I even don't have, and like all of us you pre-judge but don't hold onto those judgments as sacred."
Chase's heart sunk. "The two years of badgering and insults..."
"Aren't ending here," House interrupted. "Notice I said you have all the qualities. It still doesn't mean you use them all. Your job is going to get much harder now. More will be expected of you. You will be required to put away those moments of self-doubt and step up. You can't continue to let people think you are being lazy instead of passive or you won't be taken seriously. You must recognize that what your team considers to be your weaknesses are actually your strengths and play those. You understand what makes your co-workers tick unfortunately the people pleaser inside of you prevents that information from being used for its full use. That people pleaser must be told to shut the hell up."
Chase stood there quietly listening, not showing an ounce of emotion. This is more like the House he knows.
House continued. "Lucky for you, having a drunk mother and an absent father did you justice in the end. Abuse rolls off of you like water on your back. You know people's pain and what motivates them, skills that are a must for great diagnostician. You are too brilliant with diagnosis to be lost to another department."
Chase continued to hold his composure, but inside his heart was flushed. Sincere compliments were something House never gave.
"For the record, if the circumstances were even, all three of you would have gotten scathing reviews. As long as all of you choose to not learn from your weaknesses and build your team to its absolute potential, there will be no mercy from me. However, as is the case in all work environments, there is no even playing field. The circumstances worked to your favor for once. Enjoy this one brief and glorious moment of validation Dr. Chase, because it will never happen again."
That was all Chase needed to hear. "I accept," Chase confidently told House. House looked at him not surprised, but yet pleased that his young doctor understood.
"You might want to let Cuddy know." Chase instructed.
"I told her you accepted right after the review. She was pleased. I let her know we threw you a party and she got mad because we didn't invite her. Little did she know we didn't invite you either."
"I hope it was a good one." Chase played along with a huge smile.
"You know, Wilson, me, a few beers… then it gets kind of awkward."
Chase laughed hard at that comment. House always found ways to amuse him.
"You start first thing Monday. I expect you to be here on time. I'll make sure that Cameron tells me if you were or not." House declared sternly.
Chase smiled with assurance while he was leaving. "No worries."