Title: No One Expects the Spanish Inquisition

Author: Goddessof7s

Summary: Deaf!Chase! Backstory hurrah!

Rating: teen

Notes: AU sequel to Ears and Eyes and Talk is Cheap

Series: Sense and sensibility 3

Warnings: Pre-slash House/Chase. Cross posted to house slash, house-chase and house fanfiction

Flock of fruit, flock of fruit, oh! Stupid me, a kurfurckle! I sighed in satisfaction as I filled in the crossword puzzle. I jumped a bit in shock at a sudden vibration through the table, damnit I hate it when I do that. I have to admit though one of the nice things about these metal tables is how well they conduct vibrations. Glancing up I see Foreman ask me "How long have you been deaf?" From the set of his shoulders he seems quite agitated, probably has asked the question more than once. Stupid bloke he's been here what almost four months and he still forgets even when he is asking me about it?

I must've made a face at the question because Foreman shifts a bit on the to the defensive side. I don't like to be questioned on my past really, but I am surprised that they held out so long before bring it up. Frankly I'm shocked that they've both lasted so long with just the fellowship. I've started to suspect that Foreman is staying from sheer bloody bull headiness, and well Cameron, I can only guess at her motives. "About five years." He seems a bit shocked at the answer and I wonder what he was expecting, I can never tell, frankly I've started to suspect that they don't even know themselves.

I'm hoping that this will be enough for his curiosity, but I highly doubt it. "How did it happen?" Figures.

I sigh again, I can't hear my sigh, but having had my hearing 4 times longer than not having it means that I still have quite a few hearing habits that I can't seem to break. I know that Foreman isn't going to like the answer, but then again I don't like the answer so I guess he'll have to live with it just like I do. "I don't know."

Oh he's agitated now, look at him squirming, "you don't know? How can you not know?"

I want to smack him, what does he think I'm lying, that I've forgotten or something? I remember the time that this was going on perfectly.

I was in at the tail end of my med schooling. It'd been one of those weeks where at the end of it you just wanted to curl up and sleep for 36 hours. Which was pretty much what I did. Baring the occasional break to eat or go to the bathroom I was really only interested in resting. All I really know is that when I started to wake up in the shower I realized that I couldn't hear anything. Just dead silence, I started to talk to myself, banged on the shower door, to no avail. Dead silence. I hurriedly got dressed, I think that I arrived at the hospital, St. Mary's that I was interning at, in record time, later I would feel guilty that it took my own personal health crisis to cause me to move that fast. Even at 4 am the ER was bustling with activity.

"Mary," I grabbed Mary by the arm, she was a pretty brunette nurse that I knew did a good job and didn't gossip too much. She also had the preferable tendency to not hit on me.

She barely glanced at me, "Chase? What are you doing here? I didn't think you were going to be on for another 2 hours."

"Mary." There must've been a sense of urgency in my voice because she suddenly became very serious.

I had her whole attention, even before I lost my hearing I was fairly good at reading people and reading lips, but I was so thrown off by everything, that I just started in. "Mary, I can't hear anything. Nothing, no tinnitus, no ringing no nothing." I think my voice was raising from how people were starting to look, but just saying it and not being able to hear it made it worse, I knew that I was starting to get a bit hysterical, but honestly who could blame me. Mary started to talk at me, and I was watching her lips but I just couldn't process it. People started to press around me all of them asking questions with their lips moving, but I couldn't get it, couldn't process. I started breathing too fast, I knew that I was hyperventilating, but I couldn't slow my breathe. Thank God for Dr. Scott. He had the good sense to clear everyone away, sat me down pushed my head between my legs and gave me five minutes to collect myself. Finally I started to calm down.

"Dr. Scott. I don't know what happened but I just woke up and I couldn't hear a thing."

I look up at his face watching his lips, "...you do...unusual.."

I blinked it was garbled, but knowing the kind of questions he would ask it wasn't too hard to piece the rest together. "No, I didn't do anything unusual. I mean you know how awful this last week has been. I went home I slept, I ate and I slept some more. I don't really remember much more than waking up and raiding the fridge before going back to sleep. I do-don't know if it faded over the time that I was asleep or if it just suddenly happened. But when I woke up this morning nothing." Goddamn it! I actually started to cry and bless Dr. Scott's balding middle-aged heart he pulls me forward and hugs me and just lets me bawl.

Two weeks and about a million tests later and we still didn't have a good explanation for what happened. I did have a diagnosis though: sensorineural hearing loss. I managed to hit the really rare cases where it happens in both ears. There's not always a reason why it happens. It can be triggered by a viral infection or an autoimmune disease. If caught right away it can be treated with steroids but they only work half the time. Unfortunately I gained no hearing back even from the treatment, and without being to pinpoint what caused the sudden loss there was nothing to do but wait it out. Occasionally one's hearing can just come back, but the rule of thumb is that if it's been more than a year it's permeant.

I spent four months intensively training at a school for the deaf and blind to learn how to cope with the loss. I found out that I was a natural lip reader and all of my previous language skills ( three fluent and few more passable) made it easier to learn sign language. There where other smaller things to learn besides communicating, but nothing so bad as having to re-design one's whole life. I felt very lucky that I wasn't blind. Adapting to living wasn't so hard, adapting to working, well I wasn't even sure if they would let me.

Dr. Scott came to see me after I got out, he insisted that I finish school that there had to be a way to make it work. He believed in me so much, that I had to try. I found out so much about myself from my loss. I started to really gain some self confidence, that all the things that other people were saying about me that I couldn't hear, weren't important. I went to therapy, talked it out (so to speak) what I was feeling and for the first time in a long time I started to actually feel whole. It's funny really that losing my hearing helped me to gain so much more.

Just because I'm more adjusted than I was doesn't mean that I like people prying into my life. "It's called sensorineural hearing loss. Sometimes it just happens, no explanation, the treatment is iffy at best, and it didn't work." Foreman didn't look like he was going to drop the subject, bugger all, couldn't he just leave well enough alone.

Foreman's head turns and I follow the direction with my eyes and see House with a file in his hand. Never have I been so glad to get a patient. "...diagnosing Chase perhaps we can work on a actual patient." I swear for just a split second that House winked at me, as if he knew that he was rescuing me from the Spanish inquisition over there. Huh.