A/N: I know I have slightly fiddled with the time scales here, and everything is moving along rather fast in terms of Chase's recovery, but I call it artistic licence. Thanks for all the review so far!
Chase forced past the confused muddle of blackness in his head until he found himself conscious. Once again, he found himself blinded by a focused beam of light directed straight into his eyes. Pulling his head away, with more force than he had previously been able to, Chase felt the light recede. He blinked furiously to regain his vision, until finally it slipped into some semblance of reality, and he was able to take in his surroundings. Turning his head to the side, Chase realised he was lying in a bed with metal railings and well used, off-whitish sheets. The bed was located within a cubicle enclosed by a white curtain. Turning his head to his other side, his gaze was drawn first to a metal IV pole with a number of bags of fluid hanging from it and then to a person, an unfamiliar youth in a white coat.
Something clicked in his mind as Chase felt clarity return. With it came the realisation that he was in a hospital, and the memories of why. Nausea rose within him and Chase made a weak attempt to rise from the bed as he felt the bile burning the back of his throat. The young doctor by his bedside moved too slowly and Chase vomited onto the sheets, though not much came up. The doctor by the bed shuffled around and grabbed an emesis basin, ramming it against Chase's chin, but the damage was done, and so was Chase. He flopped back into his pillows, engulfed by bitterness and anger. Life had never seemed worse. And that was saying something, coming from Chase.
"The nausea should pass soon enough," stated the young doctor in an annoyingly nasal voice, whom Chase had already labelled as inexperienced and inept. "Your bloods show that most of the chemical is out of your system. This is just the aftermath." If the idiot had read the chart, Chase thought, he would also know that he was speaking to a doctor and that it was therefore completely pointless to be telling him this.
"What hospital is this, and what ward am I in?" He forced out. His throat was dry and felt burnt from the acidity of the bile.
"This is the psychiatric wing of Princeton General," the youth replied. Chase withheld the urge to sigh at the increasingly obvious stupidity of this doctor. He had all the subtlety and intelligence of a work experience kid, except someone seemed to have granted this one a stethoscope. Blinking, he remained silent as he considered the best course of action. Mostly, he wanted to get out of this hospital. He briefly wondered why he was at Princeton General, and not at PPTH. But in the mean time, he would settle for getting out of the psyche wing.
"Could I have a glass of water, please?" He asked. The young doctor blushed slightly as he reached for a plastic cup and poured some water, passing it into Chase's shaky hand. Chase sensed that the doctor was very new to his speciality, (Chase rather assumed that he was a psychiatrist) and had only just been let off his supervisor's leash. Chase had a rather low opinion of psychiatrists in general, and had seen enough of them to be able to suss them out pretty quick on the whole.
With his voice a little stronger, Chase got to work quickly. "What happened?" he asked. "All I remember is having the most god awful headache."
The young doctor frowned slightly. A headache wasn't exactly an early onset, or the most severe, symptom of an Elavil overdose.
"You took some pills. The ambulance brought you in and we pumped the drugs out of your system. Do you remember why you took the pills?" the doctor questioned. Chase resisted the urge to laugh at the guy's tactics. Life experience had taught him more than a psych rotation had ever done, but this idiot didn't even seem to have read the books properly. Asking a suicide patient straight out why they did it, the minute after they woke up? Either he was hoping to catch Chase at a weak moment, without his defences, or he really didn't have a clue. Chase was opting for the second.
"I had a headache. I took some aspirin, but it just wouldn't go away. I guess I may have taken a few too many…" Chase trailed off and watched the doctor's brow furrow.
"You took Elavil. An antidepressant. That's what you overdosed on," the doctor said in a questioning voice. Chase had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. He felt like shit. He had a tube stuck up his dick. And yet he was still managing to outwit a supposedly fully trained psychiatrist. It wasn't supposed to be this easy.
"Shit," Chase responded. "I took what? Crikey, I could have killed myself!" Chase had to try very hard to suppress the melodramatic tone that his voice seemed to assume. The doctor's brow seemed to wrinkle further.
"You didn't realise what the pills were?" he asked.
"No! I must have misread the bottle!" Chase exclaimed. "Am I going to be Ok? Did I do any damage?" He asked, trying to inject some sense that he actually cared into his voice.
"You… you should be fine. The pills are almost out of your system." Already the doctor's voice was tinged with disappointment. Chase suspected that he had just cheated the guy out of his chance to prove himself to his supervisors. He was probably the guinea pig. A cut and dry case for the trainee to play with.
"Thank god. Crikey, when I think what could have happened!" Chase added for effect. "When can I get out of here?" He asked, hoping he wasn't going to arouse the doctor's suspicions with his eagerness.
Nope, Chase thought, as the doctor scribbled something on his chart before returning his pen to his pocket, clearly dissatisfied at Chase's lack of emotional breakdown.
"I'll have you transferred to a private room this afternoon," the doctor stated, slotting the chart over the side rail rather than bothering to put it at the end. He turned and walked from the cubicle, pulling the curtain shut behind him.
Chase reached forwards for the chart and leafed through to the back page where the doctor (Dr. Wimsly, he now learnt) had made the notation. "Psychologically sound", read the juvenile scrawl, accompanied by the note, "FICR". Chase frowned, searching for the meaning of the notation. It certainly wasn't a medical term he recognised. Pulling forth his memories, Chase suddenly remembered the abbreviation from his days as a med student. "Fucking idiot can't read." Chase merely raised his eyebrows slightly at the predictable simplicity of the young doctor before returning the chart to the side of the bed and scrunching back down into the bed, exhausted after his Oscar winning performance.
At five o'clock in the evening, there was a knock on House's door. He stared more intently at the television set, hoping to put on a credible show of not having noticed. But sadly, glass walls weren't really conducive to hiding. Wilson entered. If anything, House should have been surprised that he bothered to knock at all.
"Come on. Even as his doctor you'll be pushing visiting hours if you arrive after 6," Wilson stated. House dragged his eyes away from the TV set and regarded his friend, picking up the ball on his desk and tossing it high above his head.
"What makes you think I'm visiting?" He asked, as he caught the ball on its descent and threw it at Wilson. Wilson caught the ball, but did not return it.
"Come on," Wilson simply said. House hated that his actions could be predicted, and would have refused if he didn't know somewhere within him that he had to visit. And equally, although half of him wanted nothing more than to never see his employee again, the other half was intrigued. He was curious. There was a puzzle that had yet to be solved. He wanted to see the workings of the mind. Again, House refused to let himself believe that he had any other motives for wanting to see Chase. Lifting his jacket of his chair with a mock sigh of resignation, House muttered, "party pooper", as he hobbled out after Wilson and hit the light switch.
House paused outside the room he had been directed too, again filled with a deep sense of dread. He wondered how Chase had managed to escape the psych wing so quickly, but the curiosity was dwarfed by the guilt and anger that he felt towards Chase. He couldn't quite work out why those feelings were so overwhelming him again. Usually he was pretty good at putting a lid on such emotions. But somehow he knew he felt at the very least a responsibility towards Chase.
Finally, he forced the door open and entered Chase's private room. Without the ventilator in and with some of the other tubes now removed, Chase was a little more free, and was now curled up on the bed and facing away from the door. He appeared to be asleep; House was relieved. Pushing the door too as quietly as possible, House made his way over to the chair. He was pulling his Gameboy out of his pocket when the shuffling of sheets caught his attention.
House glanced up to see a pair of eyes peeping out at him over the top of the sheet. It was amazing, House thought, how the Australian managed to portray such a wounded look of anger with nothing more than his eyes showing.
"What are you doing here, House?" Chase asked, rasping. House shifted somewhat awkwardly in the chair.
"What, no tearful hugs for the valiant saviour?" he mocked. He hadn't exactly planned it that way, but sarcasm was his standard method of defence.
"Just go." Chase responded, turning his head away so that not even his eyes were visible to House. Fine, thought House, it was easier that way anyway.
"You realise that you're going to have to see me again whatever. Not only am I your doctor, I'm also your boss." House pointed out.
The sheets twitched.
"Since when are you my doctor?" Chase injected a sneer into the question even with his dry throat.
"Since yesterday, actually, when you decided that the answer to life lay at the bottom of a bottle of pills, contrary to the popular belief that it is, in fact, 42." If House had been hoping for a chuckle, he was sorely disappointed.
"I'm switching doctors. And I'm resigning my post." Chase answered. House lifted his eyebrows in surprise. Of course, he should have expected that. He should have realised that Chase wouldn't plan on sticking around after this, but after what Chase had done not so very long ago to ensure that he kept his job, House just hadn't really seen Chase walking out on it in quite this manner. Of course, if things had gone to Chase's plans, it would all have been irrelevant anyway. But after 8 months of fellowship, the longest anyone had ever made with House, he just hadn't thought Chase would walk away from it like this.
"What makes you think you haven't already been fired?" he countered.
"Have I?" Chase questioned, with nothing more than slight interest registering in his voice.
House paused. He wouldn't lie. Now he had unintentionally given Chase one up.
"No. You have the flu." House answered. As far as everyone but Wilson was concerned, this was exactly what Chase had. Cameron had even suggested that she take some grapes over to Chase that evening.
"Told you so," Chase answered back. House was unable to restrain a slight smirk at the fact that his youngest fellow retained something of a sense of humour, even in this most awkward of situations.
"And I'm not letting you out of your contract. So you have no choice but to stay." House added. The tiny voice of sensitivity that was left within him whispered that it perhaps wasn't a good idea to force this notion upon Chase at the moment, given his recent exploits. He might resort back to a more permanent method of escape. But he had been ignoring that voice for too long for it to have much influence over his actions now.
"You can't make me stay," Chase shot back vehemently, and then promptly broke into a bout of coughing. House watched, torn, as Chase's body was racked with coughs, but as a tear began to squeeze out of the corner of his tightly clenched shut eyes, House moved to the bedside. Pouring a glass of water, he brought his hand gently round the back of Chase's neck, bringing his head forwards until he could drink the water without choking. Chase drank the water gratefully until he had brought the coughing back under control, and then pulled away from House's grip. House removed his hand with something that felt like a twinge of regret, and stepped a little further away from the bed, but did not return to his seat. Staring for a moment at the young blonde face lying in the bed before him, House was for a moment convinced that the tear that now trickled down Chase's cheek had nothing to do with his physical condition.
"Go away House." Chase's voice was so steely that House was shaken from his thoughts of a moment earlier. Matching Chase's tone, House responded, "I'm coming back tomorrow," before turning and walking out of the door.
House was almost glad that Chase had been so keen to see the back of him. It was almost as though he had set House a challenge; now House had an excuse to continue visiting Chase. As long as Chase didn't want him there, he felt it was acceptable for him to be there.