House leaned far back in his chair as he turned his I-pod up and shut off the outside world. Shutting his eyes, he was unaware of another presence in the room until his I-pod suddenly went dead. Opening his eyes, he blinked unconcernedly up at Cuddy, standing before him.
"Dr. House. I have an ethical dilemma that I'd like you to consult on, that being your speciality. You're the head of, I don't know, let's say a hospital somewhere," Cuddy began with an icy smile that House had come to know as her most dangerous expression over the years. "One day, you arrive in that hospital to discover that the previous evening, three doctors, all supposedly ill with the "flu", have arrived at the dead of night, with one of the doctors miraculously transformed into a patient in a critical condition, and then proceed to ban all the appropriate staff members from seeing said patient, and indeed actually lie about his identity for the next 24 hours. Let's just say that happened. What would you do, Doctor House?"
House assumed an expression of deep thought, and then responded, "I'd probably give him a slap on the bottie, tell him he'd been a very naughty boy, and send him to his room without any supper."
Cuddy merely blinked. If anything, she'd expected something more scathing.
"Explain, House". She demanded simply. House looked at her, realising that some kind of response was going to be necessary.
"Can't you just be happy that I'm exhibiting concern over an employee?" He asked. Cuddy frowned in response.
"No. Because that would be so out of character that I would either have to come to the conclusion that you've suffered some kind of cranial trauma that's altering your judgement, or that there's something else even worse going on." She answered.
"Well then I suggest you ignore it and hope it goes away." House advised innocently. Cuddy took a deep breath, and for a minute it looked like she would explode.
"Just tell me one thing," she began, her voice carefully measured. "Did you put him there?"
House stared back at her, meeting her gaze. "What, do you mean did I personally carry him to that bed? Now now Lisa, that's a little insensitive, I'm a cripple after all…" House trailed off as Cuddy began slowly to shake her head from side to side, and realised that now might be the time to get just a little bit serious. "No. No, I didn't put him there. I found him the way he was, and I brought him here."
Cuddy continued to stare at him for a number of moments, then turned on her heel and walked towards the door. "I'm watching you, House."
House stared at her retreating ass, and anyone would have thought that he was admiring the view. Then he hit a button on his I pod, and returned his thoughts to the trail that they had been stuck on all morning.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
It was a familiar noise, but Chase couldn't quite seem to associate it with anything in his mind. Thoughts and sensations buzzed nonsensically around his mind, half remnants of the distorted dream world in which he had been ensconced, and half reality, though it was proving more than a little difficult to differentiate between the two.
There was something metallic tasting round his mouth, something biting into his cheeks.
He felt uneasy, afraid, and somewhere in his mind the vague shadow of a figure, an ominous presence, lurked, and the fact that he couldn't tell whether this was from the dream world or the real world further alarmed him.
His throat felt constricted and sore, in fact his entire respiratory system felt clogged and heavy, as if his chest was filled with something viscous and soupy. Every time he breathed in, it felt as if something was stabbing into his side, from the inside, not the out, and he weakly coughed.
His eyes felt glued shut, but he couldn't work out why.
"Chase?" Robert was startled by the masculine voice, and recognised its owner before he had even registered the fact that he was the person being called for.
The shock gave him enough momentum to open his eyes, and as he blinked, he became aware that he was in familiar surroundings, seeing a hospital room from a viewpoint that was becoming increasingly recognisable.
Finally his eyes adjusted enough to reveal the form of Gregory House, standing by his bedside, leaning against the rail. Chase was still too foggy to decide whether or not this was actually reality, and he could feel his eyelids drooping as the insurmountable force of sleep came over him. He felt warm and leaden, and he still couldn't quite decide whether or not he had woken up at all. His lids dropped shut, and he felt himself drifting off again, surrendering once again to his dreams.
House sighed, leaning against the foot of the bed. Chase had been kept sedated for the past few days, as much because House wanted him compliant in order to convince the other staff that this was a routine case as to benefit Chase's health. Of course, the constant hovering that House had done over the past few days had done nothing to alleviate suspicions, and amongst the whisperings of the hospital grapevine he had heard numerous theories, ranging from Chase having a mysterious and contagious disease that was being kept secret to keep the hospital out of trouble to a violent love affair between House and Chase, being the true cause of Chase's stay. House had done nothing to alleviate suspicions.
House had only allowed two nurses to take care of Chase, both boring, efficient but lacking in enthusiasm. That way there was at least some hope of keeping Chase's true condition a secret. To justify this decision to Cuddy, he had argued that Chase would want to retain as much of his dignity as possible, given the fact that he had to work with these people, and bed baths were hardly a way of earning the respect of your juniors. Cuddy had reluctantly agreed, though her eyes narrowed with suspicion. But seeing as House seemed, curiously, to be genuinely interested in the welfare of his youngest employee, she had let it slide without probing for the moment. In this particular case, she didn't want to find out anything that she didn't want to know.
For his own part, House had secretly enjoyed watching the sails of the hospital rumour mill spin, and he had used this to justify to himself the amount of time that he had spent in Chase's room. That and the fact that it left him to watch General Hospital in peace, and Cuddy seemed to have decided that he was immune from clinic duty whilst he was in there.
But now it had been three days, and Chase was being weaned off the sedatives.
House couldn't decide whether he was glad that Chase was getting healthy again, or annoyed that he was going to have to deal with him again. Maybe annoyed wasn't the right word. Apprehensive might fit better. Not even an entirely unpleasant apprehension. House pushed the thoughts away as he always did, made a note on Chase's file, and then withdrew from the room.
An hour later, Wilson spied House in the clinic. He couldn't think what he could possibly be doing there, seeing as he pretty much had a get out of jail free pass on the clinic duty front for the moment.
Wilson could only think of one reason that House would be in the clinic, and that was that there was something that he was so desperate to get his mind off that he had had to resort to taunting the clinic patients. Shaking his head slightly to himself, Wilson turned away and headed towards Chase's room.
Wilson entered the dimly lit room and noted the movement of the body in the bed, but Chase's eyes remained closed, and to all appearances, he remained fast asleep. Wilson seated himself in the chair beside the bed, a large comfy armchair pinched from someone's office, evidence of House's occupation of the room over the past few days.
"Chase?" Wilson asked. The figure remained still, although Wilson sensed a slightly unnatural stiffness that suggested the patient was more awake than he would like Wilson to know.
"He cares about you, you know," Wilson murmured. He didn't quite know what he hoped to come out of this. He wasn't even sure that Chase was awake, or whether he was lucid enough to remember what Wilson told him
"I don't know how, I don't exactly know why, but in his own way, he does." Wilson couldn't quite be sure, but he thought that the rate of the heart monitor might have ever so slightly increased since he had entered the room. Deciding that he had played as much of a role as he should at the present moment and in the present circumstances, Wilson rose from his chair and exited the room.
The tension in Chase's body eased, and he shifted in the bed, trying to find a position that would relieve the uncomfortable tension in his chest.
His mind whirring, it would be a long time before the young man succumbed to sleep.
Round the last bend of the track, lean into the corner, that's it, just right, accelerate down the final straight, watch that bastard coming up behind you – blank.
"Damn it! Level 9!" House cursed as the battery of the console died and the screen faded to nothingness. Placing the offending toy to the side, House looked up at the sleeping man on the bed.
"You know, I've never wanted to kill myself," he remarked casually. Chase's face remained immobile. "Some people might think otherwise. Some people might think that knowing you might die if you don't take a treatment, and knowing that you'll lose the use of a leg if you do, and choosing the leg, is a suicide wish. But people will do desperate things at desperate times."
Chase coughed, quickly followed by a wince, and then his eyelids began to flicker open. He fixed his gaze upon House.
"I wasn't desperate," he whispered. "I didn't feel a thing." Whatever else Chase might have had to say was broken off in a violent fit of coughing. House gazed on unmoving for a moment, then reached for a syringe and injected it into Chase's IV. Chase fixed House with a stare, and Chase couldn't deny that that wasn't a desperate stare.
House looked up from the screen of his computer as he caught sight of a set faced Cameron marching down the corridor towards his office. House contemplated whether it was too late to hurry to the door and lock it. In answer to his question, Cameron reached the conference room and slammed the file she was holding down on the glass table. House just had time to grab his ear phones and switch on his I pod in a last ditch attempt to fend her off before Cameron pushed his door open and stood in front of him, hands on hips and pose unusually determined.
House blinked at her unconcernedly.
"It's as if Cuddy has been brought to life before my eyes. Found a new charity case husband to get all wound up about?" He asked. His light tone disguised the uneasiness that he actually felt, another rare feeling that he hadn't often found stirred before this whole affair had started. But House knew that Cameron could only be here about one thing, and it was an issue that he didn't particularly want to face.
"The patient in room 206 is Chase?" She demanded. House assumed an air of surprise.
"He is? Well I guess that explains why he hasn't been in work for the past few weeks. So, did you manage to work out if he's faking or not yet?"
"My friend has been admitted as a patient with severe pneumonia just three doors away from this office, and you didn't think to tell me?" She demanded. House raised his eyebrows interestedly.
"Hmm, it's funny how as soon as a duckling gets sick, they immediately assume the status of 'friend'. Or husband, as has been known to happen in the past. Have you informed Chase of this fact? That's sure to make him feel all better real quick."
Cameron glared at him. Though it hadn't yet achieved the venom of a Cuddy Glare, it was still surprisingly powerful, House contemplated.
"You've acted irresponsibly and despicably. Did you just want to hurt me? I have a right to know when a colleague needs my help!" She insisted.
"What, so you can go smother them with love and ineffectual medical judgement, just to appease your own guilt?" House asked, still trying to sound disinterested. Cameron stepped back slightly, her posture immediately defensive and her eyes suddenly suspiciously bright. House could say that he hadn't meant to hit so close to the bone, but that would be lying. He didn't quite know what had prompted the attack, seeing as now that Cuddy was convinced of the veracity of his story, and Chase was slowly but surely on the mend, he had nothing to lose from the knowledge of Chase's condition becoming more widely known.
A little voice somewhere right at the back of his mind choose this moment to speak up. 'Ahh, but you do have something to lose, don't you? Because as soon as everyone else knows he's here, you won't have him to yourself anymore. You won't have his dependence, you won't have any control.' House shut the voice up by barking at Cameron.
"I've already got one subordinate out of action. I don't need you all running around, playing happy families, just because Chase was idiotic and got himself sick. Go do my clinic duty." His tone was more forceful than he would have liked, not out of deference towards Cameron's feelings, but rather because it gave away the fact that he cared what she did.
Cameron turned away, leaving House only a moment to catch a glimpse of her face crumpling, and walked out of the room without saying another word. House leaned back in his chair, the music still blaring. When had he become so caught up in this whole affair? When had he undeniably started to care?