Summary: Chase is having a bad night and House has to deal with it.

Pairings: None.

Category: Drama/Angst

Timeline: The Duckling Era.

Rated: T

Missing Time

4:02am

Chase stumbled through the door before focusing his eyes enough to look confused. "This isn't my apartment."

"Two points for team Dragon Chaser." House griped, before turning around and speaking harshly. "God help you if you ever tell anyone – especially Wilson – about this, got it?" Chase nodded with wide eyes, still seemingly confused.

The older man muttered as he limped towards his hall closet, "Stupid little wombat couldn't just get wasted at a bar like everyone else. No, he has to friggin' drag me into-"

"What?" Chase was swaying in place when House returned.

He threw the blanket at him and pointed accordingly as he began speaking again. "Couch. Bathroom. Kitchen." He lowered his hand. "Don't wake me up in the morning."

"I'm sleeping on your couch?" Chase seemed not at all caught up with his current surroundings. Which probably, House guessed, had a lot to do with his falling asleep during the car ride here.

"Which reminds me," he followed his own thoughts, not the other man's words. "I now have pictures of you drooling, and blackmail's a bitch. So, again, if anyone asks, you got drunk at a bar and spent the night at a motel like a normal guy who doesn't want to go home."

Chase nodded though House doubted he'd comprehended the majority of his words. And when he glanced away to look longingly at the sofa, House's expression relaxed into one almost resembling fondness.

"Go to sleep already, kid." He said with as much annoyance as he could muster – which wasn't much.

Chase complied all the same, practically falling onto the couch, pulling the blanket up over him and snuggling – yeah, snuggling – into the pillow that had already been there.

House let out a deep sigh as he moved around and did a few last things before retiring to bed himself.

He'd placed a large trash can in Chase's direct line of vision, lest he need to make a repeat performance of his spectacle in the office. And he'd left a bottle of Aspirin and a glass of water on the table – but if Chase ever dared mention that, he'd deny all knowledge.

He went to sleep knowing that the events that had unfolded tonight – Chase's actions and his own – had added up to a complex puzzle littered with annoyingly emotional pieces. He went to sleep knowing that this was a puzzle he'd probably never solve.

And – for possibly the first time in his life – he was okay with that.

o0oo0o

3:33am

The patter of steady rain drops coming down outside and assaulting the hospital windows was more comforting to the crippled old man than he dare ever admit to anyone.

In his youth, he'd had an uncanny affection for thunderstorms. His first memory was that of deep, rumbling thunder and the bright streaks of lightening bolts.

He couldn't have been more than two or three years old; he remembered rising his head from the comfortable dent in his pillow and feeling immediately curious. Even back then his curiosity had always gotten the better of him.

To pacify that curiosity he'd climbed out of his bed - he knew he'd had something warm and soft clutched in his embrace; an old stuffed animal or blanket long since disposed of, most likely - and with that safety net keeping him steady, he'd wandered onto the back porch of the one-story ranch house he and his parents had been living in.

He knew he'd been young, because he knew this specific memory had a solid location in the United States; and the House family had moved out of the U.S. when Greg was no older than four, and didn't return again until he was well into his pre-pubescent years.

This memory, his first memory, was about as clear and precise as one can ever expect their first memory to be. He knew it had been warm; the winds kicked up from the storm wafting by and tickling his skin, causing him to shiver innocently. Not from cold.

The porch from which he'd watched the trees sway back and forth in tune with whatever or whomever was conducting this massive display of power had offered him overhead protection. But still the rain eventually soaked through his skin, being whipped at him diagonally, causing the roof above him to become obsolete.

Most of all, though, Greg House remembered being alone. Because as much as he muddled through his sketchy recollection of that night, he could not put either of his parents in the scene. Because they'd simply not been there.

Sleeping, drunk, having sex - they may have even put in earplugs to protect themselves from the sounds of the roaring thunder that Greg had found so interesting - he'd never know one way or another.

It was his first memory, his first emotional connection to the real world, and the emotions he came out of it with were that of peace. Comfort.

So, to this day, that's what Greg House associated with the sounds, feelings and smells that accompanied a thunderstorm; Comforting solitude.

He'd never been one for self-psychoanalysis - he'd rather leave that up to the quacks who deemed themselves doctors yet probably couldn't work a stethoscope to save their lives - but even he couldn't deny the metaphor laced within that memory. And while he rather not, he also couldn't keep his thoughts from mulling over his out of place reminisces.

It was late. Late Friday night and Greg House was probably the only doctor - not counting the poor saps posted at ER stations - currently still in the building. What he needed right now was a good distraction. He needed to go home and watch TV, play the piano, call a hooker, get drunk. Anything.

And he intended to do just that. He just needed to make a quick stop in his office first. Car keys - no bike tonight. Hooray for foresight and the weather channel - jacket, book bag. And he'd be off.

He would have been too.

Off to live out another night in his empty apartment. Off to be alone. To the comfort and safety he felt there.

His internal thunderstorm.

He was so close, in retrospect. So close.

Then he limped heavily into his office and - as so often happens - everything changed.

o0oo0o

3:37am

"What in the hell are you doing?" Was his first, admittedly knee-jerk, outraged reaction to the scene he'd stumbled into.

Robert Chase was draped over his desk. The only real similarity his position had to sitting was that his ass was in House's leather chair. Other than that, it looked as if he were trying to decipher some microscopic words etched into the top of the elder man's desk.

There was his bottle of Scotch - his secret, well hidden, very expensive - bottle of Scotch open and setting in front of him. Half empty.

At House's words, Chase at least had the decency to look up. His arms were splayed out in front of him, fingers clenched lightly and his eyes betrayed the proper amount of fright, and for that, House could almost overlook the delayed response.

"...chasing the Dragon?" His words weren't nearly as frightened as his eyes.

"Okay, one; That's a reference to heroin. And you better not be shooting up heroin in my office. Two," His cane lead the way and three hobbling steps later, he was close enough to smell the liquor. Almost the desperation. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I..." Chase, at least, made the effort to lift his head some more. So that his gray eyes could meet House's blue ones almost levelly. "I thought you were gone already."

"Yeah, well, live and learn." House was still acting incredibly pissed. And yeah, maybe some of that anger was disguising shock. And maybe a little, little bit of that shock was giving way for genuine concern.

But, he told himself firmly, that was just because he'd stumbled across an anomaly.

"That stuff was expensive." He decided to gripe at his Intensivist, buying himself time to figure out his next move. This wasn't a situation he found himself in often, after all.

"Tasted great." His accent was coming out so thick, that House could have sworn he heard it in Chase's accompanying giggle.

Still not sure how to respond to seeing his normally so solid and unflappable employee in such a state, House let an idea wander into his head. And before he could completely rebuke the notion, he had to know.

"Were you on an ICU rotation tonight?" It would explain away all of the symptoms, House reasoned. If Chase had lost one too many patients. Or even just one that he'd been attached to, for whatever reason.

He'd seen this same turn of events with Jimmy a time too many for his liking. When one of his baldies bit the dust or he got kicked to the curb in the end game of his latest romantic entanglement.

It didn't mean that he'd be comfortable with the situation - and certainly not with the fact that Chase apparently had as much trust in him as Jimmy did - but at least he would know what was going on.

Thus he was thoroughly disappointed when Chase's shaggy blonde hair flopped around with his head in a negative back and forth response.

"Nope." He all but slurred. "Nopey, nope. Nope."

House rolled his eyes at the drunken Australian. It was amusing, he'd give Chase that.

"You got another parent I don't know about?" House tried, deciding on impulse as the cold, almost hurtful words spewed from his lips, to sit down in the chair across from the desk. "Were you adopted? Your birth mother show up, die of cancer before your very eyes?"

Chase's gaze narrowed and House felt a flash of surprise. No way in hell...

"Where'd 'ou get that?" Chase croaked and, despite the circumstances, the gruff man felt relief.

He had enough parental issues of his own. Dealing with Chase's required more remorse than he possessed.

"Soap opera." House grunted. Because that had indeed been where he'd gotten the idea. "So..." House dragged out the word when the younger man would say nothing more. His demeanor had calmed considerably since he'd unwittingly stumbled into this web of angst. He actually hadn't been that angry to begin with. Just puzzled. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to be caring and compassionate? Ask what's wrong so I can make it all better?"

Steely gray held his gaze again. House wondered if he was getting through.

"I..." Chase was either too drunk or too confused about his own motives for this late night pity party to summon up a properly witty response. "I don't..."

"Because last I checked," House tore his own inquisitive eyes away from Chase, to focus on the cane he was rolling absently between his palms. "getting drunk in a hospital was kind of a no-no. Not positive, though. Maybe we should check with Cuddy."

His gaze still lowered, House couldn't see Chase's expression, but the outraged fear in his tone was answer enough for the elder man. "You're going to rat me out to Cuddy?"

"Why shouldn't I?" He kept his tone perfectly neutral. "You're breaking the rules."

"Like you give a rat's ass-"

"I bet we could call her at home right now. Page her with some sort of fake emergency."

Chase's silence was answer enough again. House kept pushing. "If nothing else, she'd probably be able to provide the sympathetic, tear-worthy shoulder you seem to need right now."

"Because you're all about the needs of others." He dragged out 'all' making the word sound hauntingly sarcastic, a barb intended to cause emotional pain.

"Or I could get Wilson," House went on. His voice was still casual, yet there was a hint of something almost real there too. Hopefully, Chase was too drunk to notice that.

House knew his longest employed fellow well enough to know what was out-of-character for him. The same way he knew how Cameron's moral compass operated and that Foreman's instinctual fear of conflict often got in the way of his job - and the image he tried so hard to keep up for the rest of the world.

He didn't necessarily want to know these things. He just did.

"Wilson?" The drunken Aussie echoed uncomprehendingly.

"Yeah." House said in a monotone. "He's way better than Cuddy at the touchy-feely crap."

"I don't want to talk to Wilson." Chase sagged slightly, House could see him out of his peripheral vision.

"Then you do want me to call Cuddy?" House had to figure out a way to fix this. And fast. He really wanted to go home. To solve this and move on.

"God, no." Chase chuckled slightly at his own answer, as if it held some ironic humor that House couldn't grasp.

"Cameron?" The older man tried, not expecting anything other than what he got; a painfully sarcastic grunt.

House shifted his eyes to the ceiling. "Foreman? I mean, I don't really wanna know why you'd want me to call Foreman, but if you do..."

"I don't." Chase snorted. "I really, really, really don't."

"My God, you get repetitive when you're wasted."

Chase's tone switched from vaguely disconnected to sharp and inquisitive. If it wasn't for the stupidity of the question, House almost would have been able to believe that he was discussing a differential. "Why are you even here?"

"My office." the senior doctor put his answer into words only because - for some reason - he couldn't bring himself to look up and grace Chase with glare. "My chair. My desk. My booze."

"I mean..." the younger man went on. "Why are you here now? It's late."

"Or early." House deflected, "And I could ask you the same thing."

"Marla's at my apartment," he answered the subtle inquiry, and House stifled a sigh. If Chase wasn't deflecting, that meant he wanted to talk. To him.

"Girlfriend?" He'd traveled this path with Jimmy as well. First came the denial.

"Yupper."

Then again, Chase wasn't married. No reason to deny it.

Next came the reasoning.

"Needed something to fill the empty void in your wounded heart?" Tact wasn't his forte. If his Intensivist had expected anything different, he should have stolen someone else's first class alcohol. Holed himself up in someone else's office at three in the morning.

"You're a bastard." His words weren't exactly angry, though, and House was beginning to get frustrated.

Jimmy was so much easier. Because he knew Jimmy. Had twelve years of friendship under his belt; well-worn paths of predictable outcomes.

So he snapped. "And you know that. You know I'm a bastard. Yet you're here. So tell me what's going on or call yourself a cab and go home. Go to a motel. Take two weeks off and go back to Australia. I don't care. Just don't drag me into your pathetic life without good reason."

"I didn't know you were here." House finally looked up and met his gaze again. The gray eyes were sharp, but not clear. Still obviously clouded by intoxication. "I thought you'd gone home to your pathetic, miserable life already."

Going for the jugular again. House was intrigued. He was also rather angry. The words hurt more than they probably should have. He'd heard them many a time before. Just not from Chase.

Splitting the difference between his moods, he settled for logic. "No you didn't." He snapped. "Your coat's hanging over there," he gestured to the coat rack without looking away. "It's wet. So's your hair. Meaning you were outside. Meaning you saw my car. And you knew I was here. That's why you're here."

Actually, there was only about a fifty to seventy percent chance that Chase had seen his car and actually recognized it, but House was hoping the younger doctor was too drunk to realize that. He needed the truth.

Luck - or not-luck, depending on how he looked at it - was on his side. "Fine!" Chase threw up his hands, letting them fall back down harshly on the wood, flopping like dead fish. "I knew you'd be here. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

House sighed the sigh he'd been holding in for the last ten minutes, running a hand over his face tiredly. "The psych ward is always looking for fresh new patients." He said harshly. "Want me to call up there? Reserve you a spot for their ten-thirty group therapy?"

It was Chase's turn to sigh now. Only his was one of defeat. "I shouldn't be here." And as if to prove his statement, the younger man steadied his arms on the wooden surface and attempted to rise to his feet. "Just never mind. Forget it."

House watched in a detached sort of way as Chase balanced his weight on his legs. He seemed almost steady, until he went to take a step forward and tilted dramatically to one side. Throwing out an arm to steady himself instinctively, he ended up balanced against the back of the chair.

House rolled his eyes. Amusing gave way for pathetic.

"Sit down." He commanded.

"No." The Australian resembled a petulant four-year-old with his word and defiant expression.

With a grace that no one ever believed a cripple capable of, House rose from his own chair and moved around until he was in front of Chase. The shorter man looked up at him, blinking a few times confusedly, still managing to look rebellious.

House raised his eyebrows, widened his eyes, and with one comical push, had Chase back in his chair. It rolled slightly as the drunken weight of the skinny blonde assaulted it, leaving him several inches away from the desk. Though now, at least, it actually looked like he was sitting.

"Stay." House barked, moving away again - out into the conference room.

Chase muttered something that could have been, "I'm not your damn puppy," after House's retreating form, but the older man promptly ignored it as he made a beeline for the coffee machine.

As far as he was concerned, Chase was a puppy. A sad, sick, kicked little puppy. A stray that had wandered into House's life - and his liquor cabinet - and if the senior doctor didn't take care of him now, he'd be left out in the cold. Alone. And while the idea of having a puppy had never been appealing to him - not even in his youth - he just wasn't as mean as everyone made him out to be. Plus those puppy-dog eyes really were hard on the soul.

The coffee was from late that evening. Cameron had made a fresh pot around seven, right before she had gone home for the night. Pouring some into a disposable cup, House put it in the microwave and set the timer for forty-five seconds.

As the machine lit up and the hot plate turned repetitively in a circle, House kept his gaze fixed on it, physically resisting the urge to turn around and look through the glass walls that separated his office from the room he was currently standing in.

The relationship he had with Chase was more complex than with either of his other fellows. Chase had been with him the longest, his reasoning behind hiring him in the first place was the most complex and - while House hated to admit it - he had the most respect for the young Aussie.

He believed, that out of every employee he'd ever had, Chase the most likely to come out this experience with enough under his belt to go into Diagnostics on his own and be successful at it.

Admitting that to himself, accepting it as the truth, in no way meant that the young Robert Chase was ready to leave the comfort and safety of House's fellowship now. Not yet. So, as the microwave beeped to completion and the crippled old man reached in and took the cup with one hand, balancing his weight on his cane with the other, he made his way back into his own office - thoroughly set on making sure that it wasn't Chase's intention to run away.

"Drink." House shoved the cup into his hand before sitting down again, removing the bottle of Scotch from the countertop as he did so.

"No more happy juice for you." He explained as Chase's eyes followed his movements. House twisted the cap back on the bottle and shoved it onto a nearby bookshelf. "Drink."

At the second command, Chase followed the order and took a sip. He cringed as he lowered the cup from his lips. "That's horrible."

"What'd you expect," he griped, "Fresh coffee?"

"God forbid." A sarcastic rolling of the eyes was tolerated only because the younger man continued to drink the reheated beverage.

A few long, silent minutes later, Chase looked up again. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Great." House groaned. This is what he got for giving a damn. "Garbage can's to your left."

Eyeing the object in question, Chase nodded, and then lowered the cup to the desk. His eyes followed the movement of his hand but didn't look back up again after it was complete.

"You know..." House broke the silence when he could no longer take it. "I'm not that great at guessing games."

There was something to his tone. An air around the way he said those words that spoke subtly of underlying worry, genuine concern, mismatched feelings of dis-ease. The younger man eyed his wearily and picked up his coffee cup again before speaking.

"It doesn't really matter all that much, does it?" Chase said sullenly, eyeing the Styrofoam cup in his hand. "What's wrong, what's going on…nothing really matters."

"It matters if it interferes with your life." House pointed out, taking a deep breath and debating on pulling the Scotch back over and taking a drink himself. He settled on simply popping a Vicodin.

"Even if it interferes in a good way?" Chase looked almost hopeful, and still noticeably drunk.

House rolled his eyes as he slipped the pill bottle back into his pocket. "Drunk in my office at three in the morning is not good in any way." He waited for a long time for Chase to reply to that and when he didn't, the older man began to feel marginally more uncomfortable than he already was. "Are you sure you don't want me to call Wilson?"

"Why do you always do that?" Chase took another sip of his god awful coffee. "Get Wilson to do all the hard stuff?"

"Because I do all the logical stuff." House answered honestly and – of course – logically. He wasn't sure why he was giving into these insane ramblings, but he was, and for the moment he decided to leave it at that.

Chase grinned, and if there was something deeper than drunken amusement residing behind it, House didn't give it too much attention. "You two go together." He said. And if there was something deeper than logical deduction in his words, House didn't give that too much consideration either. "You know, a lot of people don't get it."

"Get…" He stopped because he really didn't want to know.

But Chase apparently felt the need to tell him anyway. "Why you two are friends. No one really gets it. Well…I think Cuddy does. Stacy seemed to. Cameron and Foreman might. I'm sure Wilson does-"

"Getting to a point?" House interrupted, not liking how this conversation had turned to a drunken psychoanalysis of his relationships.

"There are rumors." Chase laughed, and then hiccupped before going on. "That you two are gay, that you have some insane blackmail over him, that he'd a masochist, that one of you used to be a woman…"

"What?" That last one at least he'd never heard before.

Chase looked thoughtful. "Maybe that was one of the nurses."

"Yeah," And if his tone was almost soft, well…he wasn't considering much tonight anyway. "I know that story."

"But most people just don't why you're friends." House waited patiently for him to go on. "But I get it. You two just…fit together. You balance each other out. It's like…an equation…or something."

"Deep." House said, and his tone held a bit of sarcasm but mostly something else that he himself couldn't name. "But it still really has nothing to do with why you're here."

Chase looked up blankly.

"In my office, mooching my booze. Focus," he tapped his cane on the floor a few times, "We've been over this."

"I didn't want to go home." He said and drank yet some more coffee.

"To your girlfriend."

"I wanted to be alone." Chase nodded.

House narrowed his eyes, still very intent on figuring this out. "So you came here when you knew I'd be here…that makes sense."

Even in his Scotch-induced haze the younger man could hear the question buried in that statement.

"You're not like other people." Was all he offered as an answer.

"Well…" House tapped his fingers on his knee, "I've been hearing that since I was three."

Chase smiled. "I don't really know…what I…I just…" suddenly his complexion grew rather pale. "…shit…"

And he threw his body towards the garbage can in just enough time to make the vomit land there. House cringed openly. Doctor or not – the sound of another person puking was never one he would grow accustomed to.

But he waited patiently for Chase to finish. He would not go and comfort the younger man, but he also wouldn't use this as an opportunity to grab his things and make a dash for the door.

He wondered absently what the middle ground between total bastard and Jimmy-like Saint was called. If it had a name at all; as people generally looked over these emotions and decisions.

There were really only two standings in life that got you recognition; kind, good, and pure or mean, cold and cruel. House was typically pegged as the latter. But the events of tonight were pointing teasingly towards that middle ground that never received notice.

"Sorry, 'bout that." Chase mumbled as he rose to sit back in the chair. "I think I spilt some coffee."

"I'll call a janitor tomorrow." Because no way in hell was he dealing with the garbage can of puke. "Go get your jacket."

Chase just looked at him; head tilted to one side in an almost endearing manner as it made him look like a child. "Huh?"

"Jacket, bag," House looked under his desk briefly and rolled his eyes when he looked back up at the Intensivist. "Shoes."

"I told you…" Chase sounded sad and almost desperate in that moment, and House hated that he could feel himself giving into that yet again. "…I don' wanna go home."

"Well, you're not sleeping here." He snapped. "Just get your crap and let's go."

Chase eventually followed the order – albeit sullenly – and House watched him move about. He was sloppy, uncoordinated and supremely dejected. The Diagnostician watched with well-hidden sympathy and made up his mind about how exactly to handle this problem.

God help him if Wilson ever found out about this.

Fin.