Wilson sat as his desk, frowning over the file in front of him, when the door burst open, to reveal a disgruntled looking House, with no jacket, just a t shirt, and a fluorescent yellow pair of sneakers.
"He's gone", House announced dramatically. Wilson digested the comment, pushing aside his doubts over House's appearance.
"Chase?" He ventured. House stared at him scathingly.
"No. Steve McQueen. So obviously I came all the way down here to see if he'd popped in for a chat with you." House said with a sarcastic smile, his voice falsely bright.
"How did he get out? I thought you had him locked in your room," Wilson asked.
"I was taking a shower. I would have had him in for company, but you know he's not really into that at the moment. Rubbish houseguest really. He should really find some way to pay his way." House answered.
"Are you going to indulge in intelligent, sensical, conversation at any point today?" Wilson enquired.
"Do I ever?" came the sulky response.
"Not really," Wilson conceded. "So where have you looked?" Wilson asked. House limped over to the armchair in the corner of Wilson's office and sat down heavily.
"Everywhere," House responded, sighing, finally letting Wilson catch a sliver of worry. "I.e. my apartment, his apartment, and here. Next stop is the zoo. Where else do wombats hide out?" House sounded aggravated, and indeed he was. After all the time Chase had been here, he still had not the faintest idea where he might hope to find him. Chase had no family here that he was aware of, and it wasn't like he could have escaped to Australia in the short time that he had been missing, and the only acquaintance that House was aware of outside the hospital was that dominatrix, and it wasn't like House had ever really got the low down on that. The possibilities that his mind conjectured were almost certainly far more entertaining any way.
"Have you tried asking Foreman and Cameron?" Wilson asked. House twiddled his cane, with nothing else to fiddle with.
"And tell them what, Chase has been living with me for the past few days and he's disappeared for an hour, and I'm all hyped up? 'Cause that won't sound at all suspicious." House responded.
Wilson raised his eyebrows.
"Come on, you're House, omnipresent, all knowing, all pervading. If you wanted to ask them, you could find a way. Hell, from you, they probably wouldn't blink twice if you asked them to find J.F. Kennedy for you," Wilson said incredulously. "You just don't like to think that anyone could know more about him than you. You want to work it out all by yourself," Wilson guessed. House scowled, disgruntled that Wilson knew him so well that he had managed to pin down feelings that even he hadn't fully identified yet.
Wilson's expression softened.
"Are you really that worried about him? Don't you think that maybe he just got fed up playing patient and went to stay with a friend somewhere?" House glared at Wilson. It seemed to be his expression of choice today.
"I'm not worried about him. I just don't want to lose a plaything. The other ducklings will be sad. And I spent time and… well no money, but time and effort, stopping him from doing himself in the first time. What's the point in putting all that to waste? And I hate interviews. And intensivists are rare, especially ones with the teasing potential that Chase has." Wilson bit his tongue to prevent himself from expressing the thought that that was an awful lot of reasons to answer a simple question. Wilson suspected that House was trying to convince himself as much as, if not more than, Wilson.
"And Chase doesn't have any friends." House finished, answering the second part of Wilson's question.
"How do you know?" Wilson challenged, as much to contest House's conviction as for any other reason.
"Do you see him rushing off after work every night? Because I see him working overtime a lot, and taking weekend shifts. He doesn't have time to make friends." House responded. "I guess he might have friends in Australia," he acquiesced, "but I'm pretty sure that's some place far, far away."
"Look, House, unless you have the faintest clue where to start looking, I don't see what you can do without his cooperation. He's a grown man, he can take care of himself." Wilson said.
"The point is he won't take care of himself." House mumbled. Wilson sighed and spun his chair round to fact House fully.
"What do you want me to do then?" He asked. Wilson was quite willing to help Chase, despite whatever problems had passed between them, but it seemed to him that House had just come here to complain. Which wasn't unusual, but was nevertheless tedious.
House studied the end of his cane thoughtfully, considering the question.
"Get your car keys," he instructed, "we're going duckling fishing."
Chase sat, shivering, in the deserted doorway of an abandoned house in a fairly shoddy part of town. It was such a cliché, but perhaps that was why Chase had ended up here. It was obvious. Chase had left House's apartment not really knowing where he was going. He wasn't hugely familiar with the area around House's apartment, and whilst he was aware that his own place couldn't be more than a half hour walk or so away, he found that his feet led him in the opposite direction.
Chase had left House's apartment on impulse, because he felt suffocated and confused by the emotions running through his head. He hoped that maybe when he was alone, his mind would be clearer. So instead of turning towards his apartment, where he would undoubtedly face awkward glances from the respectable middle class neighbours whom he barely knew, who would surely have realised something was off, or at least would if they saw Chase as he was now, he simply sought solitude.
For a few hours, he had walked aimlessly in vaguely the same direction, avoiding the busy places, heading down the deserted streets until he found himself in the outer suburbs of the city, and exhaustion had forced him to slow down and stop.
So now he found himself alone. But it didn't seem to have given his thoughts any clarity. All Chase felt was confusion. Whereas days before, all he had wished was to be free from his body, from his life, now, when he had no one and nothing to stop him, he felt no impulsion to do anything about it. He couldn't decide whether he had simply given up on any desire to anything that required positive action, or if some of his hope in life had been rekindled by, dare he even think it, House. His thoughts veered from one extreme to the other, and then swerved onto other, completely irrational thoughts. What was the better kind of pasta to serve with a mushroom sauce, penne, or fusilli? How many men had Cameron slept with in the past year? Which came first, the chicken or the egg, his mother's alcohol problem or her hatred of Chase?
Chase shook the thoughts away, wondering if he was really going crazy. He focused on his material sensations and surroundings. He had lost track of all time, and he wasn't wearing a watch. The sky was ominously grey, threatening snow, hiding the time of day. Chase shivered, realising that the flimsy t-shirt he wore would be no protection against the snow, pushing himself further back into the unyielding concrete of the doorstep that he occupied, though it offered little shelter. Chase registered with mild surprise that he did care that it was cold, and that the ground was damp, and that his joints were in varying stages of stiffness, numbness, coldness and pain. He couldn't decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
As the first flake of snow floated innocently to the ground, pausing momentarily on the pavement before the membranes broke and the liquid dispersed, Chase decided that it was probably a bad thing.
As another flake descended, and then another, soon turning into a steady fall, Chase suddenly found himself inexplicably giggling, like a naughty child, over the horrible predictability of it all. Breathing in deeply, ignoring the cold air as it hit the back of his throat, Chase yelled as loud as he could, "Come on then, give me all that you got!"
The snow flakes fell a little harder, and as Chase's mirth began to subside, his breath continued to catch, the freezing air stinging, until soon he felt his eyes begin to well up, and his breathing turned into racking sobs. Huddling in on himself, Chase let his emotions and thoughts fade away, and soon found himself asleep.