Author's Note: Either you screwed me, and you want absolution, or you didn't, and you want applause. Either way, not interested. –Dr. Gregory House, speaking to Dr. Robert Chase during Season 3, Episode 9: Finding Judas.

Disclaimer: I don't own House, M.D., nor its concepts, characters, and setting, but I do love them, especially Chase.

Dr. Robert Chase liked the lobby floor. Its smooth tiles were unmoving and safe. So, naturally, he had to get up.

"Upsy Daisy," Nurse Brenda Previn coaxed encouragingly, pulling the young man's extended hand to help him balance as he rose.

"I feel like an idiot," he admitted.

"Good reason for that." She shooed him through the glass doors into the clinic and put him in Exam Room Three. She ran her hands briskly over his arms and legs, then reached to feel his jaw.

He winced and pulled back.

"Let me check it for you," she ordered. He held still for her. "It doesn't feel broken," she said, "but you're the doctor. You want an X-ray?"

"No, it's fine."

"Uh-huh. Wait here." She hurried out.

He looked at the phone on the wall, walked over to it, and called the Surgical Department.

"Christine, it's Dr. Chase. Did they stop Alice Hartman's amputations in time?"

"Yes, Dr. House called us. They were only getting started. No incision was even made."

"Thank you." He hung up the receiver and seated himself on the exam table.

Brenda bustled back in with an ice pack and handed it to him. "You okay?"

Chase put the ice pack to his jaw. "Great."

"You want one of the doctors to check you out?"

"No, I'm fine."

"H.R.'s gonna want to talk to you."

He frowned. "What about?"

Brenda laughed. "You're kidding, right?"

"Dr. Chase, we can't help you if you won't tell us what happened."

"I told you what happened, and I don't need help."

"I know this was frighten—"

"I was frightened that a little girl might be maimed, that's all."

"We can protect you from Dr. House."

Chase looked skeptical. "Even if that were true, I don't need to be protected. Nothing happened."

"Half a dozen witnesses say otherwise."

He sighed. "I don't know the what or why of what anyone else has said. All I can tell you is what happened to me."

Dr. Lisa Cuddy and her chief of security watched the video in grim silence. When it was finished, she said, "That's it?"

"I'm afraid so," the chief confirmed.

"Play it again."

They watched as the little figure of Dr. Chase sprinted from the elevator bank to the lobby, ran up to Dr. House, and the two men exited the camera range together.

"We got nothing," the chief said. "Whatever the witnesses say happened is what happened."

"Chase," Cuddy greeted him as he entered her office. "Sit down."

He sat.

"Tell me what happened."

"I wrote a statement for H.R."

"Yes, and I read it. Now you can tell me what happened."

Chase took a breath and gathered his thoughts, then looked her in the eye before beginning to speak. "Cameron and Foreman and I were in the DDM conference room. Alice Hartman had already been taken to surgery, but we were still talking about her case, and I realized that Erythropoietic protoporphyria was a much better fit than necrotizing fasciitis. It was perfect, in fact, explained all her symptoms. House had left, so I ran to find him so he could stop the amputations. I got off the elevator, saw him in the lobby, and ran over and started to tell him about the diagnosis and that he needed to stop the surgery, but the floor was too slick, I was moving too fast, and I slipped and fell, cracked my jaw against the tiles."

Cuddy held his eyes for several long seconds. "I want the truth," she told him quietly.

"That is the truth!" Chase willed himself to be calm, to hold back his frustration. Wasn't it enough he'd had to go through it to begin with, without… this?

Cuddy was calm, her voice reasonable. "I fully understand why you want to protect him, but more than half a dozen people saw him punch you, and I can't have docto—"

"He didn't punch me." Chase sighed wearily. His jaw ached. Make it stop. "I slipped and fell. He got Alice's diagnosis wrong, but he didn't make me face plant."

Cuddy picked up a sheaf of papers and extended them across the desk to him. "Explain these then."

Chase read through them. They were witness statements taken by H.R. and Security. A doctor, nurse, receptionist, nurse aide, maintenance man, a patient, and another patient's father had reported that Chase ran up to House, the two had words, and House punched Chase, knocking him to the floor.

"Are all those people lying, Chase?"

The office was very quiet. The last of the sunlight was mostly blocked out by the slim horizontal slats of the shutters.

"They're not lying," he answered softly. "They're saying what I said: I ran up to House, we spoke, and I fell."

"And his fist? Are they lying about that?"

Focus. What's the alternative? He moistened his lips. "I'm sure they weren't lying." He looked up at her, feeling the way. He needed her to believe him. "But I'm not lying either. Probably… " He watched dust motes dance above the desk in the final red rays of the dying light, then his eyes were back on her face. "House must have tried to grab for me, to stop me falling, and when his hand closed, they saw his fist."

His accent made the final words sound to her like 'sore his fist.' She looked at the darkening bruise on the young doctor's jaw. Such loyalty. What had House ever done to deserve it?

And if House had punched her in the face in the lobby in front of half a dozen witnesses, would she have had the stones to sit there and lie to her about it?

"All right, Chase. Thank you for your help."

By the time Cuddy ran House to earth in his glass walled office, all the fellows had left for the day and night had closed in.

She swung open the door without knocking. "What happened?"

"Chase figured out the correct diagnosis, and the little girl's limbs were saved."

"In the lobby, House. What happened when Chase came and told you what he'd 'figured out'?"

House looked at her for a long time without speaking.

"House?" she prompted finally.

"What does Chase say happened?"

Cuddy took in a big breath. "Chase says he ran up to tell you to stop the surgery, and slipped and fell, and that your fist was you reaching to grab him to stop his fall."

House blinked a few times, then grinned hugely. "That's exactly what happened."

"I figured," Cuddy said. "You two deserve each other." She stalked out.

Alone at his desk in the night dark office, House rubbed his sore knuckles, and wondered if what she'd said was true. Did they deserve each other?

"Sorry, Chase," House said aloud.

Chase, of course, was not there to hear it. Nor did he hear the continuation.

"But I could still use some more pills."