REWIND...part 16

Despite his resolve to get his life back to normal, Chase had to fight the urge to walk out the front door. In fact, when the elevator doors opened he was tempted to hit the first floor button. And he might have done just that if he hadn't caught sight of Cuddy striding towards him, determination etched in her body language.

"Dr. Chase, can I have a word?" she called out as she neared him.

"Of course." Chase stepped off the elevator, flinching as the doors closed behind him. Escape was now futile. "Is something wrong?" he asked, when Cuddy reached him. She looked a bit agitated.

Shaking her head, Cuddy put on a smile. "Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to welcome you back to work. But are you sure you're ready to be back?"

He answered her strained smile with one of his own. They were both playing the game and they both knew it. Chase was fine with that. "I'm sure. I'm glad to be back."

"Good." Cuddy visibly relaxed for a moment, only to tense up again as she blurted out, "I'm sorry about not being at the gathering for Vanessa. I had to work."

"I understand," Chase replied. Truth be told, he hadn't even considered her coming to the gathering. It wasn't as if they were friends or anything.

Cuddy sighed a bit then patted his shoulder. "I know you have a session with Dr. Burns so I won't keep you, but I wanted to tell you that if you ever need to talk...my door is always open to you. Just like before."

Chase nodded. "Thank you. I'll remember that." He did appreciate the gesture, even though they both knew he wouldn't take her up on it. But now the niceties were over and he could slip away. "I'd better go."

"Of course." She stepped to the side so he could go past her.

As he headed down the hallway, Chase could feel Cuddy's eyes searing into his back. He tried to ignore it but he was grateful when he reached Dr. Burn's office. He stepped inside and smiled at her receptionist.

Before he could announce himself she stated, "Dr. Chase, Dr. Burns is waiting for you. You can go right in. No need to knock." She pointed to the door off to the left.

"Thanks." Chase walked over to the door and stepped inside. He knew if he hesitated he'd just turn around and leave. Leaving wasn't an option. Leaving would just cause him more problems. He wanted all of his problems to go away. So he would do this session, and whatever other sessions he was forced in too, and he would prove to everyone that he was fine and they could all go back to the way things had been.

"Dr. Chase," Burns said in greeting, as he moved into the room. "You're late. For a minute there I thought I'd have to call out the national guard."

It was meant to be a joke, but it fell flat. Chase still smiled though. Anything to make the next hour move along. "Sorry, Dr. Cuddy needed to speak with me."

Burns arched an eyebrow then nodded. "That's fine then. So long as you weren't trying to avoid me."

"To be honest, I don't believe I need these sessions," Chase replied. When Burns waved him over to the couch to sit, he shook his head and moved to stand behind one of the two arm chairs. Her office was simply decorated with pale green walls, brown, beige and green carpeting and a patterned couch with beige armchairs. Cozy and meant to be homey. Chase felt stifled in here.

"Your past actions seem to prove otherwise," Burns countered. "If a patient had gone through everything you have in the past few months, and reacted the way you have, how would you have diagnosed them? Just patted them on the head and sent them home?"

Chase felt a flare of anger but stifled it. He sensed that Burns was pushing his buttons for a reason. She would soon find out he could wait her out. Chase had learned to be non reactive in any given circumstance, at a young age. He was master of it now. "I wouldn't patronize them," he replied, calmly and quietly.

Dr. Burns looked amused by his response. "Touche," she acknowledged. "Are you ready to get started?"

"Fine." Chase remained standing as he waited for her to start with her questions.

"What was your relationship with your father like?" Burns asked.

Chase flinched and tried to hide it. He had expected this to come up, but he really didn't want to deal with it. Still, he knew he had to give her something if he wanted her to finally leave it alone. "He was mostly and absentee father. Even when he was around. He didn't time for anything or anyone but his work."

Burns nodded and scribbled something on the clipboard she had on her lap. "Did you resent him for that?"

"I suppose." Chase moved away from the chair, drifting over to the window. The sky was overcast now, rather like his mood was becoming. "Look, just so we don't waste each other's time here. I don't have any Dad issues. He was who he was. He preferred his work over my mum and me. He left her when I was fifteen and eventually remarried and had a couple more kids. End of story. And no...I do not want to talk about his death. He was dead to me long before he was put in the ground."

"Fair enough," Burns allowed, scribbling some more. "Let's move on to your job."

Chase sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in the hopes of warding off the beginnings of a tension headache. "What about my job?"

Burns locked eyes with Chase. "Do you like it?"

"I wouldn't do it if I didn't." Chase was surprised she had even asked such a stupid question.

"Have you always wanted to be a doctor?"

Moving away from the window in a futile attempt to try and avoid the intensity of Burns's gaze upon him, Chase moved to stand by her desk. He was tired already and he had a long day ahead of him, but he felt too restless to sit. "All my life," he replied, repeating the lie that had become his moral truth. The sad thing being that Chase had forgotten what the truth had been. As a little kid he had convinced himself that being a doctor was what he wanted and needed to do. That it was the way to get approval from his parents and from God. How pathetic was it that he still clung to that belief, even though both his parents were dead and God seemed to be too far away to reach anymore.

Rising from the corner of the couch where she had perched herself, Burns moved to the back corner of her office. She had a mini fridge and she opened it and removed a bottle of flavored water. "Thirsty?" she asked Chase.

"No, thanks," he replied. He watched her take a drink then move back to the couch. He felt tense waiting for what she would toss at him next.

"Do you like working here?" Burns prompted.

Chase shrugged. "I must, I chose to come here."

A nod and Burns asked, "To work under Dr. House?"

"He has quite the reputation," Chase replied. He didn't want her asking Why House? He hated questions he didn't have answers too. In the three years Chase had been with House, he had yet to figure out why this job was so important to him.

"I imagine you've learned a lot from him?"

Chase wondered just what he had learned, but to Burns he replied, "That's what I came here for. To learn."

A flicker of amusement crossed Burns's face before she schooled it into a neutral expression. "I'll bet you've learned some interesting things from House," She commented, then she cleared her throat and continued, obviously not expecting a reply. "Why Diagnostics when your specialty is Intensive medicine?"

"Everyone likes change," Chase replied, giving as noncommittal a reply as he could. She needed to stop asking questions he couldn't answer.

"What do you see yourself doing when your fellowship is up?" Burns shot back.

Again with the questions he couldn't answer. And this was a question he didn't want to have to answer. He didn't want to think about having to leave House, and that fact bothered him on levels he didn't want to think about. Chase rubbed his forehead, trying to ease what was becoming a full blown headache. "Whatever feels right at the time," he said. Then he glanced at his watch and had to stifle a moan. He had over forty minutes left, and that was subtracting the five minutes he'd been late for.

Burns didn't respond right away, she was busy taking another swallow of water. She then shuffled the pages on her clip board and looked very interested in what she was looking at. A moment later though she looked up and said, "I'd like to talk about your boss and your colleagues. And about Dr. Cuddy as well. We'll start with her in fact. I know that you talked with her in lieu of therapy sessions after you were treated for alcohol poisoning. My understanding was that you requested to talk to her."

"I did," Chase allowed. He couldn't see the harm in admitting to it, although he had a feeling he was going to regret it in some way down the road.

"Why?"

Chase turned away for a moment so Burns couldn't see the face he made. He was tired and his head hurt and he wanted to be any place but here. He hated being on the spot like this. Every question she was asking him was personal and it was none of her damn business. It grated all the more knowing that if he wanted to keep working, he had to be here and he had to do this. Which meant he had to find some way to deal with Burns and her questions. Chase just wasn't sure if he had the patience to deal with it today.

There was the shuffling sound of movement behind him and Chase turned back to see that Dr. Burns had moved to sit behind her desk. She had her clipboard laid out in front of her and her water to her right. She was eyeing him with curiosity in her gaze. He moved to sit in the straight chair in front of her desk. She didn't need to have physical verification of how this was affecting him. He knew how to hide in plain sight and how to deflect anything and everything. He would just have to step up and beat her at this stupid game. Because that's what he considered this to be. Nothing but a stupid game. "I felt more comfortable talking to Dr. Cuddy," Chase replied.

"Are you friends?" Burns prompted.

"No. She's my boss but she's been good to me. Fair." Chase shifted in the chair a bit and he had to stifle the urge to bobble his leg up and down.

Burns nodded. "But why could you talk to her but not a shrink?"

It surprised Chase a bit that she used the term shrink. He'd always supposed they didn't think of that term in a positive light. But he ignored his thought meanderings to reply in a way he thought would get her off this particular subject matter. "She wasn't a friend or a stranger. She was in between enough that I felt I could talk to her. I'm not good with sharing my feelings. To be honest, I feel like you're invading my privacy and I don't like it much."

"Yeah...I got that impression the first time we talked," Burns conceded, and she didn't seem all that bothered by it. "Why do you think it's hard for you to talk about yourself and your feelings?"

"It just is," Chase replied. "I wasn't raised to be open and I'm not comfortable with people knowing my life story."

Burns was writing notes again. "Is that because you don't want them to feel sorry for you?"

Chase was startled by that question. "Why would they feel sorry for me?" To his mind he figured people would be more disgusted than anything. That they would point a finger at him and tell him it was his own fault so deal. Which is what he had always tried to do. To deal with the shit life hit him with.

"You don't think you've had a sympathetic childhood?" It was Burns's turn to be surprised.

"No more than anyone else," Chase replied, honestly. Not that he knew about the lives of anyone else here. Nor did he want to know. Knowing personal stuff didn't make you a better friend or a better person, to his mind. It just gave you or others more ammunition to fuck people over with. Because in the end, everyone was human and flawed and looking out for themselves. Chase had learned that from his parents.

A arch of an eyebrow then Burns was nodding and scribbling then asking a new question. "How do you feel about Dr. Cameron?"

Chase shrugged. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what the right thing was to say to get Burns to move on. He sucked in a breath, exhaled slowly, then gave his best shot. "She's a good person, a good doctor."

"Are you friends?"

"Not really." Chase stared down at his hands, fighting the urge to bit at his thumb and wishing he had a pencil handy to bite on.

Dr. Burns made a scrunchy face. "So you don't have drinks together or go out for lunch or anything?"

Chase resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Sure we've done that," he allowed. "Foreman too. But as colleagues."

"So you're not friends with your co-workers?" She made the question sound really important.

"We come here to work, not to be buddies," Chase calmly replied. "The work we do is very hands on and very intense. I think we make a good team overall, but it's just about work."

More scribbling then Burns asked, "So you have no desire to be friends with them?"

Chase shook his head. "Not really. It would just complicate things."

"Why?"

"It just would." He started picking at a nail, just to have something to do with his hands.

There was a long moment of silence before Burns asked, "Have you made friends here? I mean, here in the states. Being so far from home and family must be hard."

Chase bit his lip, hard, to keep from making an angry comment. She was getting to be too nosy with her questions. He knew the whole point of the sessions was to talk about his life and his feelings, but it was no one's god damn business and his resentment was starting to build. "I came here to get away from home." There, that should give her enough fodder to keep her happy for a time.

"I see." Burns looked intrigued. "You didn't answer my question about friends. Have you made friends here?"

"I have people I hang out with," Chase allowed. He was not about to get specific. But he had a feeling he knew what Burns was going to ask next so he beat her to the punch. "And no...I haven't hung out with them much since I started seeing Vanessa."

Burns looked almost disappointed by being beaten to the punch line, so to speak. "Why is that? Didn't Vanessa like your friends?"

Chase took a calming breath, trying to ease the knot of anger that was forming a knot in his stomach. "Between work and being with Vanessa, I didn't have a lot of time for anything or anyone else," he replied. "It's as simple as that."

"Okay." A moment of silence other than the sound of pen on paper, then Burns eyed her watch making Chase glance at his. He had another twenty-five minutes to suffer through. "What was your mother like?" Burns asked.

"She was very beautiful and a good person," Chase replied. "She came from old money." He realized he was almost reciting his comments, and it was something of a habit. It was the description of his mother he had clung to since childhood. The one that didn't reveal any of what she had become. Chase didn't want to talk about his mother, but he had been expecting this and he hoped to deal with it then put it behind him.

Dr. Burns took a moment to drink some more water. She took her time screwing on the cap then her voice was soft as she asked, "Did she love you?"

Chase thought that was one of the stupidest questions he had ever heard, but he answered it honestly. "She tried."

"Did you end up having to take care of her?" Burns leaned back in her chair, folding her fingers over her stomach and looking supremely interested in what his reply would be.

"I suppose." Chase could see the disappointment in Burns's face at his reply, but he didn't' care. He wasn't here to feed her curiosity. He was here because he didn't have a choice.

Eyebrows arching till they nearly reached her hairline, Dr. Burns asked the one question she shouldn't have. "Did you resent her for it?"

Chase nearly bolted out of his chair, moving to place his palms on Burns's desk and leaning in a bit. He doubted he was the least bit intimidating, but he wasn't trying to scare her. He simply wanted her to understand. "The only thing I regret is you asking that question!" he snapped. But his voice was still low and controlled as he continued. "My mother had her problems which you know nothing about. She drank because of those problems and in the end it killed her. I loved her and I wish she was still alive...but she isn't. And that is all I will ever say to you about her. Understood?"

"Understood." Burns sounded sincere. "We only have a short time left and there is one other thing I would like to talk about. It deals in part with your mother, but more as a segue way than anything else."

"What?" Chase backed off from the desk, but remained standing, arms folded across his chest. He had to lock his knees a bit though, because he felt tired enough to curl up on the floor and fall asleep. He wished he could go home now, but that would be admitting defeat and he wasn't about to let that happen.

Burns sat up straight, almost like she was preparing herself for a verbal attack, and asked, "Was your mother anorexic?"

The question surprised Chase to the point where he backed up and sat down as he tried to wrap his mind around why she would ask such a thing. Then it suddenly hit him why. She thought maybe he had learned the behavior from his mother, which pissed him off because he was so fucking tired of repeating himself. He wasn't anorexic. Taking a moment to calm himself, Chase finally replied, "No, she wasn't." He didn't bother to explain how she had gone from being slim and athletic and vibrant to being pale and bloated and staggering around clutching a bottle of gin.

"Have you ever had weight problems?" Burns persisted.

"Are you asking me if I was ever a fat kid?" Chase shot back, feeling his anger rising again. "The answer is no. I was never fat and I never had food issues. I eat when I'm hungry. I love chocolate and cheeseburgers and pizza. If I'm feeling stressed I don't always eat. End of story." And by that he meant he was done with this conversation. He had no idea how much time was left, but he was finished. Turning on his heel, Chase strode over to the door. He half expected Burns would call him back and he was relieved when she didn't say a word.

Two minutes later Chase was in the nearest men's room. He felt nauseous but he was able to control the urge to vomit and after a few minutes he was able to head for the conference room.

House was waiting for him. "You look a bit peaked. Session not go well?"

"What do you need me to do?" Chase countered, not rising to the bait. He wasn't about to satisfy House's curiosity. To that end he rather wished Cameron and Foreman were around so House would have someone else to focus on.

"My laundry?" House shot back, waggling his eyebrows dramatically.

But Chase wasn't playing the game today. He didn't have the energy for it. "What do you need me to do regarding our new patient?" he specified.

House looked disappointed but replied to the question. "Go get a history. Apparently he didn't feel comfortable talking to Cameron."

"I thought the patient was female?" Chase felt confused. Maybe he'd just remembered wrong. He wouldn't put it past himself today.

"My bad," House drawled. "I get that whole gender thing confused sometimes. Besides which, I hadn't read the file earlier. Cuddy just handed it to me and said, room 312. New patient. I had a fifty-fifty chance of getting the gender right."

Pain drummed in Chase's temples, but he resisted the urge to rub them. House was watching him too closely and he wasn't about to give anything away. "Fine." Not wanting to push his luck, since House seemed inclined to let him off the hook, so to speak, Chase headed for the door.

Five minutes later he entered room 312, plastering a smile on his face. He'd grabbed a clipboard at the nurses station and as he entered the room he introduced himself to the man in the bed. "Good morning, sir. I'm Dr. Chase. I'm working on your case with my colleagues and I need to get a history."

The patient looked to be in his sixties. He had silver-gray hair, dark eyes, skin that looked leathery, no doubt from too much exposure to the sun, and a thin mouth that looked drawn down in disapproval. "Aren't any of you doctors older than twenty-one?" he groused.

"I assure you I'm old enough to be a doctor," Chase calmly replied. It wasn't the first time he'd heard that complaint. Between him and Cameron they got that response at least once from just about every patient they took care of. Moving to the chair beside the bed, Chase sat down and prepared to write. "Let's start with your name," he requested. Since House hadn't given it to him and he hadn't glanced at the chart yet. He liked to ask the patient their name anyway. Sometimes they gave something a bit different than was on the chart anyway.

"I'm Father Patrick Michael Anthony," came the reply.

Chase's head shot up and he stared at the man in disbelief. "Father Anthony..." he echoed, as his stomach twisted into a knot. Now he knew why House hadn't messed with him in the office. The joke was lying in the bed before him.

Father Anthony looked irritated. "Is that a problem?" He asked. "That other doctor, the woman, she didn't seem to like me much. She's a sinner!"

"Age," was all Chase said. But he felt like laughing inside.

THE END...of part 16