A/N: Thank you so much for all the reviews, I really appreciate them. Sorry about the delay between chapters, have been incredibly busy, but will start trying to get them out a bit quicker!
At 5.30 that afternoon, Wilson appeared at the door of House's office. House looked up, eyebrows raised, as if questioning Wilson's right to be in his office. Wilson ignored the gesture and got straight to the point.
"So. Are you going to go check on him?" he asked. House puckered his brow in confusion.
"Him? Last I checked, my patient was a 37 year old female. Well, not that I've actually checked in person. But I'm pretty sure that if a sex change had occurred in the last few hours, it would be on the chart," he answered. Again, Wilson ignored him.
"Come on House. I don't know what happened, but I'm pretty sure Chase is going to feel he has some unfinished business with you when he wakes up," he reasoned. House didn't respond, simply looking at Wilson petulantly. But nevertheless, he reached out to grab his jacket from the back of his chair and stood. Wilson took this as acceptance from House, and hid his smile of triumph.
"You're driving," House informed Wilson. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to need alcohol after this," he mumbled under his breath.
Wilson slumped into a chair in reception whilst House reluctantly made his way over to the desk to enquire as to Chase's whereabouts. Without Wilson's prompt, he was fairly certain he wouldn't be here. In fact, he could think of few places that he would less like to be at this moment in time. He didn't want to deal with the aftermath of his actions. It wasn't something he was accustomed to. Generally, he saved the life of his patients and then left them to go back to their boring little lives. This time, even he realised that that wasn't really an option.
The receptionist informed House that Chase was in the ICU, and gave him directions to the room on the basis that he was Chase's primary physician. (House had gone out on a limb and stuck his name down on the form there, he wasn't sure he could guarantee access to Chase any other way. He had a feeling the young doctor wouldn't want to see him much, but knew he was going to have to eventually.)
House glanced at Wilson, who had retrieved an outdated copy of a medical journal from the table, and seemed to have settled in for a long wait. He briefly considered walking straight past Wilson and out of the door, but he realised that this was a meeting he was going to have to have sooner or later, and he hoped that Chase might be too doped up for a full confrontation at that moment.
House took an inordinately long amount of time to reach the ICU, and had to force himself to open the doors when he eventually made it there, pausing to down a Vicodin before he entered.
Chase lay on the bed, apparently unconscious, but sweaty and restless. Unsurprising, House considered, seeing as he currently had tubes shoved in about every orifice. An NG tube to administer charcoal to absorb the drug, intubation to maintain his airway, haemodialysis to relieve his kidneys, a urinary catheter, IVs. House picked up Chase's chart and studied it for a moment. Initial monitoring seemed to be showing the treatment was working to plan, with no further seizures since the diazepam was administered and steadily increasing blood pressure and decreasing heart rate.
Replacing the chart, House leaned on the bed rail as he used his cane to hook a chair over to the bedside from against the wall and sat down heavily. Mostly, he just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, preferably before Chase had any chance of regaining consciousness, but he knew that Wilson would be less than impressed if he returned any sooner than half an hour from then. With no ducklings to harass, House figured he might as well sit in the room for the time, keeping as quiet as possible to avoid waking Chase. More for his own benefit than for the patient's.
Withdrawing his Gameboy from his pocket, House became so absorbed in the game that when his avatar finally popped his clogs, drawing a loud expletive from House, 37 minutes had passed. House thought with relief that he had done his bit for now, but as he returned the Gameboy to his pocket, the heart rate monitor began to increase. It appeared that Chase had chosen this precise moment to wake up. House cursed himself for swearing out loud and glanced towards the door, considering an escape attempt, but turning back towards the bed, he was struck without warning by a wave of that feeling that had been nagging away at him all day, and instead he moved closer to the bed.
House remained silent as the eyelids fluttered open, finally settling at half mast, and two eyes met his, too masked for House to be able to make out an expression. Wordlessly, House pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and forced Chase's eyelids further open. Chase responded by trying to weakly pull his head out of House's grasp, but he was unsuccessful. House noted with satisfaction that the pupils were equal and reactive. Of course, Chase's doctors would check again later, but House didn't trust doctors.
Chase's mind felt foggy and he couldn't decide whether or not this was a reality or a dream. He was having trouble thinking beyond his immediate sensations. Firstly, there was the light in his eyes. Ouch. His head hurt. He tried to turn away, but that only made the pain increase, and he promptly gave up. Attempting to gasp at the pain, Chase became aware of another sensation. There was something in his throat. Immediately, his gag reflex kicked in.
"They had to intubate you," stated a voice. He knew the voice, he could feel that it was associated with a place in his mind, so he obviously knew the person well, but he couldn't quite connect that to anything solid, like a name, and his vision was too blurry to get a proper view of the figure. The attempt to work it out at least took his mind off the foreign object in his throat for a moment, quelling his gag reflex.
"Go back to sleep. You'll feel better when you wake up," the voice promised. The advice was hardly needed as Chase felt himself begin to drift back to sleep, but not before he registered a brief flicker of anger at the voice, though he was too confused to probe further into the thought.
House stepped away from the bed with a sigh as Chase drifted back off to sleep. He wanted to stay indifferent; he didn't want to be emotionally involved. Yet he couldn't help the feelings that stirred within him. He didn't want Chase to be here, in pain. He wanted to help. House tried to deny the feelings as he walked slowly out of the room, his limp a little more pronounced than usual, but he couldn't quite make them go away. He knew he would be back tomorrow.
A/N: I didn't mean to get quite so focused on House. I often think he's more interesting when you don't get to see everything he's thinking. But this just seemed to be the way it happened… hope it doesn't make him too unrealistic.