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Chapter Six:
"So what do you think?"
Chase, completely unsure of what his next move should be, had done the one thing that he knew would put some sense into his head. He had called the last person (other than his daughters) who loved him no matter what, no matter if it is platonically. So here he sat, on the balcony of his master bedroom staring into the view. He could see the hospital from here and he couldn't help but vaguely wonder whether or not they were all there in the diagnostics department conspiring against him.
"Oh, hon," Came the soft, sweet voice of Stephanie Dashund over the phone. "You have got to stop torturing yourself with things that are out of your control, things that aren't about you, like your mum's death and your dad's death, and start worrying about yourself, what is in your control, what you can do to make yourself happy."
"Move home?" Robert asked, running a hand through his wet hair from his very recent shower.
There was a pregnant pause, "You know, I don't think that you would be happy if you moved home."
Chase narrowed his eyes, sitting up straight in his chair. "What do you mean? Of course I would be happier if I moved home, I never should have left in the first place."
"Honey, you left because you felt that you had to get away from everything that Melbourne represented, and I think that if you move back to your house in Melbourne all you'll feel is emptiness because you're in the place where your mother hit you and was always drunk, never fed you, drank herself to death, where your father ignored and abandoned you and where your wife died. In retrospect, I don't think that you moving home, at least at this point when you are already so depressed, will help you."
"But you really think that me being here in this awful place will help me?" he asked, confused.
"It's not awful, it's only America," Stephanie said, amused.
"Yeah, but it's cold and damp and I swear I have seen like maybe five blonde guys since I've been here, I feel like I'm going extinct or something being the only one." He complained, "And having people always tell me that dying my hair blonde is bad for it because they find it so unbelievable that I am actually a natural blonde is very annoying."
"Robbie, you can't hate a place because people make fun of your hair colour." Stephanie laughed.
Robert huffed, "Yes, I can," he said.
"You know, it amazes me how you can go from completely mature one second to acting like a complete baby the next." Stephanie laughed.
"Alright, I get the point," Chase said, "So, what do you think that I should do, then?"
Stephanie thought for a moment, "Robbie, you are slowly killing yourself, you realize that, right?" she whispered, sadly.
"Steph," Chase whispered. He didn't want her to think that way; he didn't even want himself to think that way.
"Well, its true, isn't it?" Stephanie said angrily. "I mean, when we were younger, I used to think nothing of the fact that you never ate, I didn't understand what she was doing to you! And now, you are so psychologically damaged that you're willingly doing it to yourself."
"I'm not trying to do this, Steph," Chase said, a little annoyed. "And I don't want you to talk that way about my mum!"
"Why do you constantly defend her?" Stephanie yelled. This was one thing that she had never been able to understand about her best friend. No matter what his mum had done to him, or memory of her was still doing to him, he would defend her to the death.
"Because she's my mum and she loved me!" Chase yelled back.
"She couldn't have loved you that much otherwise she wouldn't have done what she did to you!" Stephanie immediately regretted her words.
Chase was absolutely taken aback by her words. Tears stung his eyes.
"Honey, oh, honey I didn't mean that…" Stephanie tried to rectify her words.
"No, you did mean it," he whispered. "I should go."
"No, don't you dare push me away; I'm all that you've got."
"Yeah, how about that?" Chase pressed the end button and then proceeded to turn off the phone altogether. He had to think.
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"I still don't think that this is a good idea,"
As Chase had suspected, the five all sat together in the diagnostics department talking about him.
"Listen, Cameron, you can keep saying that fifty times over and fifty times over I'm going to ignore you, so why don't you just give it up." House snapped, rubbing his temples. This thing with Chase was really starting to get to him. He wanted to help Chase, and yet he couldn't. Not only did he have no idea what to do for his littlest, and prettiest, duckling, but he knew that trying to do anything would only make Chase hate him more.
Cameron sighed, "Because I'm afraid of what will happen if we let him deal with it by himself." She whispered. "What if he can't do it himself?"
"We have to have faith in him," Cuddy said, "I know that it's hard to do nothing, but I think that if we try and help him we'll end up just causing more damage than healing."
"You see, Alison," Foreman said, trying to comfort the saddened doctor, "If we push to hard, he'll pull away even further."
"Who is Stephanie Dashund?"
Everyone turned to look at House, who sat at the table in the middle of the room.
"What?" Wilson asked.
"Stephanie Dashund is Chase's best friend, his kid's 'auntie Stephanie', but who is she exactly? Her name sounds eerily familiar." House replied his voice monotone.
He opened up his laptop and opened up the web page. "If I type in Chase's name in Google I get everything from who his first grade teacher was to pictures of his wedding and kids because he's really famous over in Australia. I'm just wondering if I'll get the same typing in her name." He typed the name into Google images and suddenly hundreds of pictures popped up and they all sat down to look.
The first picture was of a woman of Chase's age with short, light brown hair, deep green eyes and small black-framed glasses. She was holding up a book and the caption underneath it said "Famous Australian author Stephanie Dawn Dashund at the first signing of her latest book 'Cruising into High Gear'." The next photo was of the same woman, but with much longer hair, and Chase standing on a boat. This picture looked to have been taken only a few months ago and Stephanie was making a funny face and Chase was trying to look as though he didn't find it funny.
"Oh, that's how I knew the name, I've read that book," House said, "It's really good."
The rest of the pictures showed her with Chase, by herself, or with Chase's wife. There was one of the three of them at Chase and his wife's wedding with a caption "Robert and Melissa Chase with Robert's 'best man' Stephanie Dashund."
"Melissa," Cameron whispered. "That was her name, really pretty."
"So this Melissa," Foreman said, "Damn he must have loved her for it to still be affecting him this much."
"Eternal love, true love," Cameron sighed, "It's what everyone dreams about. Not many people actually find it, though. You know, where you can't actually live without the other person."
"I think that you should always leave some space so that if something happens to the relationship you don't fall as deeply into depression as Chase did. Things happen every day and getting yourself in so deep is bound to come back and bite you in the ass someday." Foreman said.
"Spoken like a true romantic," Cameron muttered sarcastically.
"What?" Foreman said, defensively. "I'm realistic. I mean, come on, you've seen how this has eaten away at Chase. Do you really want that for yourself?"
"It's not just Melissa that broke Chase, it's his whole family. His drunk, abusive mother and his distant shell of a father also have a say in this." House corrected.
"So you're saying that it was a lot of factors that came together to what, break him?" Cuddy asked.
"Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying." House nodded.
"Okay," Wilson nodded, "So how do we fix him?"
"We wait."
"How are we supposed to do that?" Wilson asked, "He quit, remember, he'll probably be leaving the States soon."
"I guess we'll have to have faith that he won't leave." House muttered.
With a sigh, Cameron walked over to the window and looked out, her eyes shimmering with tears. She crossed her arms over her chest and said, not taking her eyes off the window, "I sure hope that you're right."
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"Robbie, it's me. Listen, I'm sorry, honey, I never meant that the way that it sounded. Please will you pick up the phone, I'm desperate to talk to you. Maybe you went to work, I-I don't know what to do. Okay, I love you, bye."
"Robbie, PLEASE answer the phone. You're driving me crazy with worry. I am so sorry; you have to know that I would never have said it normally. Please, please, pick up. Love you."
"This is the third time that I've called in the past half an hour, Robbie, can you answer the phone, I'm starting to get really worried. Please pick up, if you don't I'm going to call the police and have them come over there and make sure you're alright. Please call me."
"ROBBIE, ROBBIE, you have got to pick up, I'm begging you, down on my hands and knees begging you, please pick up, can you not tell that I'm crying over here? Please pick up, please, please, please, I am so sorry. I am so sorry. You have to forgive me, please, please, please, please. I'm going crazy, which is obvious as I've said that four times already. Honey, please pick up and let me know that you're okay. Alright, you're not going to, but please, PLEASE, call me. I love you so much."
Chase did not hear any of these messages, though, because he is in his living room alone on the couch with an empty bottle of vodka in his hand. And he's not breathing…
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Okay, so there is chapter six. This is what I like to call the beginning of the end. Are you interested in what the end would be? Please review, I would love to know what you think before I move on. Thanks so much. One Two Buckle My Shoe.