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Thirty-two blond jokes and ten nationality taunts later, Robert Chase finally relaxes after a month under House's fellowship.
Not that anyone's keeping count. If anything, he is estimating.
House suppresses the urge to smack himself with his cane. It's only Chase after all.
Only Chase.
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one: ...but that which is only living can only die.
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Twelve o'clock, House sweeps into the room, eyes darting to and fro. He scans the room from left to right, eyes lingering on the chair Chase is usually sitting in and the book of crossword puzzles he is usually working on.
It's empty and the opened pages are blank.
"Where is he?"
Cameron is accustomed to House's inane blather by now, and ignores the question in favor of continuing the mundane secretarial work of answering House's e-mails. It's Foreman who looks up quizzically from the medical journal he had been immersed in. "Who?"
"I would say your brain, but at the moment I am more concerned about the wombat."
Foreman scowls, and returns to his reading. After a few seconds of clacking, Cameron looks up from her typing. "Oh, you mean Chase?"
"Who else, idiot?!"
Cameron's eyebrows furrow with worry as she mutters to herself, staring at the computer screen, "...He hasn't returned from ICU yet? He said he'd be back by eleven..." She looks up at House again and he's gone. Frowning and feeling snubbed, she returns to her work.
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There's a funny feeling in his stomach, something akin to a mash of nausea, pain and foreboding. It could just be the onset of old age, new feelings and paranoia, but House knows better than to ignore his gut. He has before, and the price to pay had been his leg.
House rushes out the elevator, cane clacking harshly against the gleaming hospital floor. His leg is aching and he's slightly winded, but he won't (can't) stop. The closer he gets to ICU, the louder the panic in his mind and in the air becomes--strained orders and barely contained anxiety reach his ears, and he recognizes none of the voices as Chase's.
He rounds the corner and there, being laid onto an ICU bed, being hovered over by a team of nurses, is his very own wombat. Unconscious with trauma to the head and a low pulse; not the worst, but it shouldn't have happened at all.
House's grating, abrasive voice slices through the turmoil.
"What the fuck happened here?!"
Quiet murmurs and an unlucky nurse is sent to the slaughter. She shuffles hesitantly towards the irate diagnostician, eyes averted to her clipboard. "Well..."
House glares at her, as if she is responsible for Chase's injuries. "Before my leg heals."
"Dr. Chase was, as you know, here in ICU, standing in for Dr. Gower. Since Dr. Gower hasn't arrived yet, Dr. Chase thought he'd help out and fill in while we waited, and was reviving a patient. The patient was admitted for--"
"Long story short?"
"He got knocked off balance when the patient spasmed and was knocked unconscious after he hit his head on the way down."
"So there's no need for him to be in the ICU?"
"Correct, Dr. House. He probably has a minor concussion. He..."
House tunes the nurse out as soon as she has confirmed the injuries to be nonfatal, not serious and most of all easily treatable. He stares past the nurse (she's still babbling on) at Chase's prone form. The doctors are doing the final checks before Chase is allowed to be transfered. Oxygen, pulse, pressure: check. Pupils, che--
There's a mumble of surprise and the nurses attempt to keep their voices down, but House hears the worried report. "Unresponsive? That's not right. Check them again." The nurse who is checking Chase gives House a nervous look before checking Chase's pupils once again. The results are the same.
"He's in a coma."
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"Dr. House? Other than a minor elevation of pulse, everything's normal. All the tests we've taken show normal activity, nothing unusual. All we can do is wait."
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"Do you see that? He's in REM. Totally normal, House. Just wait"
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There are no windows in this hospital room.
Chase finds this strange--none of the rooms in the hospital are this bare, this white and this enclosed. Not even the rooms in the Psych Ward.
He blinks and a spot of brown appears in the middle of the room. Frowning, Chase approaches it, and as he gets closer, the details become clearer.
It's a wombat stuffed toy.
Puzzled but amused, Chase bends to pick it up, thinking of House. House, House, House. For the past week, House has been strange...Well, stranger than usual, in any case. Chase has counted three boxes of pens that House's replenished for him, two lunches that House has paid for and four hours less of work assigned. In truth, Chase is worried. He would like to think that House is being nice because of something more than a Boss-to-Employee relationship, but House is only nice when there is something in it for him, and that something is almost always at the expense of another.
Chase hugs the wombat closer to his body, squeezing his eyes shut. As a child, he had had few toys (his father had said they were impractical), and the ones he had owned were cherished. Smiling softly to himself, Chase opens his eyes and examines the toy once again. It's plush and soft, with a deep chocolate velvet coat of fur and shiny black eyes that reflect the bare light bulb hanging in the room. And a man. Chase sees a silhouette in the reflection and he quickly looks up.
"House?"
House quirks his eyebrow and strides towards him, cane-free.
"When'd your leg get better?" Chase is confused but happy; House is cured and he is not alone, but he wonders how House managed to get inside the room. There are no windows, there are no doors.
"Silly Robbie, it's been better for awhile. You're getting forgetful, my little Brit." House taps a startled Chase on the nose; he had advanced unnoticed, Chase had been so immersed in his musings.
At that declaration, Chase is more perplexed than ever, and House senses his confusion and replies to it with an embrace.
"You hit your head harder than I thought, huh." Chase feels House softly smoothing his hair, and both hears and feels House's remark, the low gravelly voice traveling through his body, enveloping him in a warmth akin to the warmth of House's arms. "Remember? I went to physio last year with you after you and Wilson convinced me to stop taking the Vicodin. All better now, love!"
Startled, Chase pulls away. House would never call him that. House would never be this easy-going, this happy, this nice, not to Chase, not with Chase, not ever--it's a hoax, a joke, and unfortunately, no matter how much Chase wishes for it, it's not real. "What are you talking about, House? What's going on? This isn't real, this can't be--you would never act like this!"
"What's wrong, Robbie? What are you talking about? This is as real as the wombat in your arms (that I gave to you, by the way), this is as real as the diamond on your finger, as real as the sun is, as real as I am. I love you, Robert Chase, and you love me."
Chase almost melts at the confession with disbelief and desperation, eyes alternating intermittently between House and his ring finger--for indeed, just as House had said, there was a diamond ring sitting there, sparkling up at him. He sees truth in House's eyes, however, truth in the words and actions. House really does love him.
"I... I love you too, House." And it's true. Chase does love House. Almost ashamed of his previous actions, Chase keeps his eyes downcast as he approaches House. "S-sorry about just now, I didn't know--"
House silences Chase with a finger to his lips, and tilts his chin upwards. "I know." And House is leaning in towards him for a kiss, and Chase's eyelids flutter close. House's hands are hot and cradle his face, and he feels House's warm breath on his temple before House's lips meet his skin, dragging a trail towards the corner of his mouth. He parts his lips in anticipation, and House's lips are meeting his, and
BANG.
A gunshot resounds through the air, vibrating off the walls and piercing Chase's heart as his eyes fly open to see House falling, crumpling to the ground, ashen and defeated.
There is blood, blood everywhere. Too much blood for it to be okay, and somehow he knows that it's just enough for it to be fatal.
And that is all Chase needs to see to know that House is dead.
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edited 1/16/07; error in spacing