I smell like saw dust (happiness)...random but meh. Anyways sorry bout the lateness of this one, but I got tackled by another bunny and was forced at gun point by it to write a one shot. You faithful peoples should go check it out. (Sorry bout the bad grammer, I blame my english teacher and his "Shedule." instead of schedule.) And damn it, I gotta change the summary. (fumes) I hate summaries.

Rubix-Complex: Awww, you hold a grudge. Thankz.

blasphamy6669: Thankz and lol it seems that a lot of people don't like Cartier.

felixgirl: (Rolling on the floor laughing head off.)

chase88: Updating. (Salutes.)

Awww, that's it? What happened to all the other reviews? (Looks under a book.) Please review or I'm going to have Chase hurt himself. (Okay, that's not exactly a threat but it works.)

Shadowed Guilt: Chapter Fourteen Resignation

Chase groaned as he bent over to grab a bottle of water out of the vending machine, his whole body ached and would probably continue to ache for the remainder of the day. Unscrewing the cap off of the bottled water, he leant against the vending machine and took a sip. Scrubbing at his eyes, he blinked blearily up at a flickering light. Taking another sip, he watched it blink once, twice, then dim to a quarter of its original light capacity. As he started walking down the hallway, Chase found himself humming. It was a catchy little tune he had picked up from one of his patients in ICU. He couldn't remember which one, it seemed like a haze right now. In truth, he didn't care. They were patients and as long as he could treat them, be useful, he didn't think himself pathetic.

He had screwed up his life, Chase admitted it, took all the blame on his shoulders. But they were crushing his soul under their weight and he had already cracked a long time ago. Why did he hold on when there was nothing left? Was it to treat people who needed it? If it was why wasn't he working in one of those free clinics in the city's desperate and poorer district? Maybe it was to impress people as to how he could uphold the crumbling name of his household. But why was he thousands of miles away from his home in Australia? No matter how he looked at it he was just one of the screw ups in the world which shouldn't have been born. All he did was bring misery to everyone he touched, closing himself off from them had helped little. They now tried to reach in. Why couldn't they just leave well enough alone? Why couldn't they make up their minds? Did they want him? Or did they reach to him because it would soothe their bleeding hearts?

He blinked and cleared the nonsense running through his mind. Chase found himself staring through the glass wall into Mr Reichs' room, he looked behind him and shook his head. He had seemingly walked through three floors, these mind blanks were happening more often and he found them quite disturbing. Glancing through the glass, Chase summarized the faithful and vigilant Mrs Reichs was off somewhere doing only God knows what. Taking it as an opportunity, he stepped inside.

Mr Reichs looked out miserably from under his tangled dark hair, his eyes were red from the lack of sleep he had been getting due to the pain. One side of his face was swollen and drool leaked out from the corner of his chapped lips. "Mr Reichs." Chase greeted and narrowed his eyes at the glare from the light.

Mr Reichs raised two fingers of his right hand in acknowledgment and breathed nosily. Chase placed his right palm on the light switch and dimmed it until it was nearly pitch black, "I hope you don't mind. Light is an enemy to my migraine." It wasn't a migraine, but since when had Chase last told the whole truth about himself to anyone?

Reichs cocked his head and shrugged a shoulder. Chase dragged a chair to the darkest spot he could find that still encircled the patient's bed. Reichs slowly raised an arm and gestured to Chase's forehead. Confused, Chase raised a hand to his hairline and felt the ugly scar that slashed it's way down from his forehead to a millimeter from his right temple. He smiled reassuringly, "One of my patients crashed through one of those glass walls taking me with him. It wasn't fun."

Reichs seemed to take that explanation as truth. Chase crossed his legs, "I seriously need to know and this won't go back to your wife, but you are sure you haven't been to Central America?"

A pause followed as he reached for a pad of paper on his night stand, he wrote slowly then showed it to Chase, 'No.'

"An affair?" Chase asked.

'I wish.' Reichs wrote, 'Try having an affair with someone while your wife is standing at most a foot away from you at all times.'

"I see." Chase sympathized, "Do you smoke?"

Reichs nodded. Chase shifted in his chair, "What kind?"

'If I told you, I'd be arrested.'

"You smoke Cuban?" Chase asked quietly, "Do you know where they come from?"

Reichs shrugged and wrote in his flowing script, 'My wife receives them and passes them on to me.'

Chase nodded deep in thought. A clopping of heels could be heard from outside the room. Chase hurriedly grabbed the paper Reichs had been writing on, crumpled it and shoved it into his lab coat pocket. A second later the air was filled with the stifling scent of one of the most expensive perfumes this side of the Atlantic Ocean. "Dr Chase?" Mrs Reichs asked blinking owlishly in the dark, "What are you doing here sitting in the dark?"

Chase opened his mouth and glanced at Mr Reichs for help, but the bastard had closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. "Mrs Reichs." Chase greeted and grabbed Mr Reichs wrist and pretended to check the heart rate, "I'm just checking up on your husband."

"I see." Mrs Reichs said sitting down slowly, "Is it true Dr House was wrong with his first diagnosis?"

"Yes and no." Chase said, "Often the first diagnosis proves incorrect or not all the variables are there. In this case, your husband, does have TB and we are treating it however he has a secondary disease that the TB had hidden. Right now we're just trying to figure out what it is."

"Is there anything else you could give him for the pain?" Mrs Reichs asked, "He's in pain constantly and frankly twenty milligrams of morphine doesn't take the edge off."

"I'm sorry." Chase said as his hand extinctively curled around a needle full of lorazepam, "But your husband has already maxed out on morphine, any more and he could have...problems."

"Problems?" Mrs Reichs scoffed, "What can be worse then the pain?"

"He could get addicted." Chase reasoned, he should know, "Then if he's lucky he can be weaned off it without too much damage to his organs. Worse case scenario is he accidentally overdoses on morphine. It's touchy, especially with drugs, you never know what'll happen."

Mrs Reichs sighed and sat down and rubbed her feet, "Is there anything stronger?"

Chase shrugged, "The only other thing that I can think of is to put your husband into a chemically induced coma, however we'd need his consent."

"Really." Mrs Reichs' eyes lit up.

"But of course there are risks." Chase murmured trying to pop Mrs Reichs' bubble without success, "Your husband might never wake up from it."

Mrs Reichs pouted, "Oh well. I'll confer with my husband."

"I'll leave you two to it." Chase smiled skittishly and backed out of the room.

oOoOo

Chase was hanging around the gallery watching Cartier's brain surgery along with a dozen other nurses and doctors. To his immense surprise and partial relief Cameron wasn't there with her eyes practically glued to the glass. Cameron had been called earlier for a consult with one of her fellow immunologist, the immunologist who was new to this hospital seemed to be having a hard time getting back into her rhythm of doing things. Chase had once witnessed Cameron giving her coaching skills on what was appropriate to wear to work, Chase had turned tail and ran.

His pager disturbed the intense silence in the gallery, people turned to glare at him. Raising a hand as if Chase was asking for a truce, he escaped outside to read his page. Placing the object back into his pocket, he hurried up a couple of floors to the ICU wing where Mr Reichs room was. He poked his head inside and found himself staring at House's cane, "What?" he asked feeling slightly dizzy.

House grabbed his arm and maneuvered him out of the room where Mr and Mrs Reichs sat patiently, "You told them they had an option of putting Reichs under?" House sounded angry and Chase didn't know why.

"I guess." Chase trailed off totally confused.

"Why?" House hissed, "We need him to make his own medical judgments. I don't trust that Bambi lady. Now that that vile woman has convinced her feeble brained idiot of a husband to sign that stupid form, Cuddy's going to be jumping down my throat."

"Just convince him to change his medical proxy." Chase shrugged.

House shook his head in disbelief, "Who's going to do that? Me? You?"

"I don't know." Chase said slightly alarmed as House had grabbed his tie and had pulled him close to snarl in his face.

"You don't know?" House nearly shouted, "You don't know? Why don't you ever think? Why do I even bother having you hang around here? You're next to useless."

Chase could tell that House was being deprived of his precious vicodin and the stale smell of whiskey on his breath clued Chase in on the fact that House had a major hangover, but that didn't stop the words from piercing straight through to his heart. Chase dropped his eyes and mumbled something under his breath. House shook him roughly, "What did you say?"

"I'm sorry." Chase spat, "That I disappoint you so much, I'll relieve you of my presence that you so despise." he ripped his identification tag from his lab coat pocket and threw it at House along with his lab coat, as he stomped away he shouted behind him, "You'll get a copy of my letter of resignation tomorrow."

Chase didn't glance back at House who was holding the coat dumbstruck, he stormed to his locker and emptied what few items there were in there and raced to his car. He could feel tears prickling in his eyes, but he firmly wiped them away. Resting his head on the steering wheel, he breathed deeply. Once his breathing was under control and his heart stopped pounding so wildly, he started the car and drove off.

oOoOo

Chase was sitting at a red light, his leg spasming like mad. Biting his lips until he could feel the copper taste of blood invade his mouth, he struggled with the decision he was about to make. The slight twitch of pain in his stomach decided it for him as he flipped the left turn signal on, Chase hated himself for it. Memories of his drunken mother screaming out how pathetic he was, surfaced into his mind, 'Well, mum.' Chase thought cynically, 'I'm damned to Hell no matter how you look at it.'

Parking his car a ways away from his intended destination, he got out and turned the car's security system on. Chase walked and shivered in the stiff wind, but stubbornly kept going. Freezing would be better then having people knowing how weak he was. Chase strolled casually down the street which were populated by the homeless, occasionally he would flip some coins in one of their chipped mugs or whatever they used to collect their cash they made. Some would favour him with a dirty, yellowed smile. Others looked at him suspiciously. But Chase didn't notice, his focus was on the flora that surrounded the bare going brown park. He could make out kids bouncing a basketball over the graveled tarmac, grannies taking their afternoon stroll. No one would believe that murders and beatings took place after dark.

Chase inconspicuously scanned the park from under his lashes as he started to stroll along a graveled pathway. A man appeared from behind a large scarred tree covered with graffiti carvings over its magnificent trunk. The man leaned against it looking at Chase pointedly, his dark hair was greased back a small moustache covered his upper lip, dark gleaming sly eyes canvassed the park for more of his clients. Seeing only Chase, the man zeroed back onto his face. Palming a ten out of his pocket, Chase reached out to the man's hand who exchanged the money with a small plastic baggie full of white powder. As Chase turned to leave, the man caught his arm. He leaned in close, his horrible breath stinging Chase's nostrils, "I got a new shipment. Do you wanna taste?"

Chase's eyes flickered nervously through the park searching for the police that were patrolling the grounds, seeing none he relaxed, "No. This will do me fine."

"I'll give you some for free." the man enticed.

Chase winced, if the dealer wanted to give him a drug for free then he would be making a lot more money in the future, "No." Chase stated firmly.

The dealer just smiled his horribly stained teeth and slid something into Chase's coat pocket, "Just in case you change your mind."

Chase blinked and left. He would trash it before he could be tempted to try it, he crossed the street and flinched as a car came screaming past. Scowling, he continued. Another car came within inches of hitting him, Chase slammed his hand on their hood and shouted obscenities at the driver, which were returned. Shivering, Chase hurriedly back to his car. He had waited too long and could feel the effects of withdrawal closing in on him. Opening the little baggie, he took a sniff and could instantly feel the pain backing off. Wiggling his nose, he zipped the baggie back up and started the car.