A/N: Short chapter, next chapter up soon. And the Prologue for this story occurs after Chapter 7 but before this one…so right about here. Just to let you know. Enjoy!

Warning(s): Violence. Language. Sexual Assault.

Chapter 8

"The patient's not getting any better." Cameron waited for House and Foreman to respond. With Chase in jail it was up to the three of them to work the cases. He really would have been helpful now as the patient was suffering from hypertension, tachycardia, sleep and memory issues, and they were having trouble keeping him stable.

"Guys!" Cameron finally called after several seconds without a response.

Foreman gave her distracted "huh?" He didn't take his eyes off the papers in House's hand and House didn't seem to mind this neurologist reading over his shoulder.

"What are you so interested in? The patient could be dying here! Given the neurological symptoms I thought the neurologist would be interested."

"I told you that you were too pretty to think. Or think very well anyway," House muttered.

"What are you looking at?"

"Playboy Centerfold," House told her, eyes still on the paper.

Cameron walked to the other side of the desk. It was a lab result. The logo in the corner however wasn't the PPTH one so it wasn't from the hospital.

"DNA comparison," she concluded after a quick scan of the document.

"It has to be wrong," Foreman said as though his word was final.

"Fine. We'll take that to the District Attorney. Doctor Foreman, seer of all, says the results are false." House threw the papers to his desk and got up. He brushed past his fellows.

"What are you talking about?" Cameron picked up the discarded papers while Foreman took the latest results from her. "This is about Chase's case," she stated as she read.

"They took a sample from him and compared it to a hair found at the scene. They say it matches." Foreman brought her up to speed. They'd all been keeping close watch on the double murder case that Chase had been charged with. They took turns going to see him every visitation day, three times a week, just to provide him a reprieve from the prison. Each time they saw him he looked a little worse and it had only been three weeks. His eyes had gone from panicked to haunted to almost dead. Prison was quickly wearing him down. Foreman didn't even want to think in any detail about how bad it was in there for a guy like Chase.

"Direct evidence to place him at the scene of the crime," House said as he came back from the coffee machine with a cup of the steaming liquid. "Now all they need is means, motive and opportunity."

"Ridiculing them isn't going to help," Cameron chastised.

House looked confused. "It makes me feel better. That helps me."

"Well it doesn't help Chase," Foreman said. "He was working here that night." He went back to looking through the patient's latest test results, putting the Chase dilemma out of mind for a little bit. House didn't.

The detectives insisted that Chase's whereabouts couldn't be accounted for during the entire night giving him ample time to kill the Islington's and then return. House had laughed out loud at the theory when Washington had recounted to him what he'd been told. He laughed even harder when he heard the poisoning was being considered as payback for the murders. His gut told him that Chase hadn't done this. His brain told him that the retaliation motive for the poisoning was a load of horse-shit because the poison was given to him and he could have drank it or given it to anyone. Besides, his little intensivist was pretty passive unless you really pushed his buttons. House liked to think he was the only one that could.

If their hunch on Chase's innocence was correct then it meant that someone had planted the evidence. There weren't a hell of a lot of people that had that kind of access. And there was the bigger question of 'why'. Why Chase? Why now? House hated whys, mostly because the answer to a why question could be as simple as a shrug and 'why not'. Believing in the worst in people usually settled those whys to a few reasons, the top seven landing on the deadly sins. In this situation House was leaning more towards the 'greed' motive. Somebody had something to gain by putting Chase in prison. Who and what House didn't know. He was a medical super-sleuth not a criminal one. This was something for the detectives from New York that he'd chased out of his house.

"It's not Sick Sinus Syndrome," Foreman announced in regards to their patient. The tilt table test showed no cardiac abnormalities, other than the rapidity of the beating. Their guy had come in two days ago at four a.m. to the ER with unstable cardiac rhythm. The ER doctors were at a loss to explain the heartbeat that had spiked for no apparent reason. The man was already on a medication to dilate the blood vessels to the heart as he'd suffered attacks like this one before. Unfortunately he seemed to be getting worse so the diagnostics team had been assigned the case.

House had only being paying half his usual attention to the ailing gentleman. Cameron had practically had to drag House out of his office so that they could do a differential. The white board listed the symptoms: hypertension, exhaustion, angina, migraines, weight gain and memory loss. There were some gaps in the list where they'd erased symptoms that were side effects of the man's medication and not part of the actual illness.

"Well Sick Sinus was my idea. It's your turn now," House said. He took a sip of his coffee and pulled a face. He couldn't even make his coffee how he liked it anymore. That's the problem with minions.

"You just wanted to play with the tilt table," Cameron countered.

"Can you blame me?" He turned to Foreman. "Foreman, make me my coffee."

"You already have one."

House gave him a hopeful look. "You make it better."

"Look at Mister Fields and I'll make your damn coffee!" Cameron was the primary for this case so she was the one who had to deal with the suffering patient and the suffering family. She wanted to tell them some good news.

House raised a brow saying, "That's actually more of a threat than a bribe." Foreman relented and made House another cup of liquid energy. He could get really cranky without his coffee.

"There's nothing wrong with my coffee!"

House and Foreman traded a brief look.

Cameron sighed. "Mister Fields, please."

"Right. Heart-guy." He traded his less-than-tasty cup of coffee for the one his neurologist made and took a sip. "Mmm. You ever think of working at Starbucks?" He continued to sip at his hot beverage as he headed for the exit. "Our guy still in the ICU?" He didn't wait for an affirmative response. Just headed for the stairs. Cameron and Foreman watched in shock as House stepped easily up them. He'd been walking without the aid of his cane pretty well given that he was missing part of his right thigh but he'd avoided stairs, apparently just on principle.

At the landing between floors he turned to their gaping faces. "Yes, I've been faking all these years there's really nothing wrong with me." He continued up.

Cameron followed with a smile. After a shake of his head Foreman caught up with them.

"Mr. Fields!" House announced loudly as he walked into the ICU room. "Are your cookies as good as your wife's?"

The balding man was sitting up in his bed with all the lights out. The harsh hospital lighting aggravated his migraines and anything touching his head did the same. His only option was to sit up.

The glassy brown eyes slowly drifted to the door where House stood. "What?"

"Not the wittiest guy I've ever met," House stage whispered to Cameron on his left.

"Who are you?" an unfamiliar woman asked from the door as she entered behind the medical team.

"Mrs. Fields, this is Doctor House. I told you about him," Cameron quickly assured the older woman.

"Did she tell you about me?" House asked the other Fields, the one with all the problems.

"Um…no. Unless…are you Doctor Foreman?"

Mrs. Fields, Cameron and the real Dr. Foreman were silent, shocked at the progression of the man's memory loss.

"Don't worry. People get us mixed up all the time."

Only because of your egos, Cameron said mentally.

House became serious suddenly as he noticed something on the man's side table. He picked it up –a nasal strip.

"The night shift ICU doctor gave them to him to help with his snoring. They aren't working," Mrs. Fields supplied.

"You snore," House said to Mr. Fields sounding as though that was the diagnosis in and of it self. "I assumed it's not the funny snoring but the loud, annoying, your wife can't sleep because of the train wreck sound effects in the bed next to her." He turned to Mrs. Fields. "That or you're eyeliners been running really badly." The dark smudges beneath her eyes were clear signs of lack of sleep. She'd been covering them with make up but with her husband in the hospital she was skipping many of her usual morning routines, including her skilful application of foundation. "If your ICU doctor had enough sense he would have made a little note somewhere to let us know of this particular symptom."

"Snoring isn't a symptom," Foreman stated.

"Sure it is. Why do you think I'm always telling Chase to stay over night to watch the patient? It's not just because I don't like him."

"So severe snoring is causing his heart problems?" Mrs. Fields tried to follow.

"You having nightmares lately?" House asked the patient.

Mr. Fields nodded tiredly. His wife elaborated for him. "He wakes up a lot in the middle of the night from them. He told me he had one last night too."

House sighed wishing that Chase was here. He would have told the intensivist to keep watch of the patient over night. Chase would have noticed the nightmares and the snoring and they would have been able to figure this out ages ago. And if Chase hadn't noticed these symptoms then it would have been time hire a new intensivist. At least they knew now. Well he knew. Now he had to tell everyone else.

"You have obstructive sleep apnea." House dropped the little plastic strip back on the side table. "When you sleep your body paralyses itself so you don't act out your dreams. For some unlucky people like you that paralysis goes a little too far and your upper airway collapses, stopping you from breathing. Oxygen levels in your blood drop so your heart starts to pump faster in an attempt to get more oxygen to everywhere that needs it…which would be everywhere. Brain starts to go nuts with the low oxygen. You get nightmares, wake up, start breathing again but are still left with the "inexplicable" heartbeat." House turned to face his small, fully awake audience. "His cardiac meds just accelerated the problem by dilating the arteries. One method of increasing blood flow was already gone so the rapid heart beat was next in line."

"Can this be fixed?" Mrs. Fields asked for her husband who didn't react at all to the explanation. He probably hadn't really heard a word of it.

"A positive pressure mask should be enough to keep his airway open," Cameron said. Providing House's diagnosis was right, the mask would help. "He just has to wear it while he sleeps."

"It's very styling. Very Star Trek." House walked out.

"We'll schedule him for a sleep test tonight to confirm."

Mrs. Fields tore her eyes away from the strange man who'd just left to Dr. Cameron. "So he'll be okay?"

Cameron smiled as she was finally able to give her some good news. "He's going to fine."

Mrs. Fields smiled and went to her husband.

Foreman stood next to Cameron. "So I guess we'll have to figure out which one of us stays over night to watch the patients."

"Alternating?" Cameron suggested as she watched the Fields talk quietly.

Foreman nodded. "Alternating will do."

House scurried back to this office. His case now taken care of he could focus on the other puzzle, Chase. He still couldn't understand how Chase had managed to get himself in so much trouble. House would ask when he got him out of there. He hoped his name didn't come up in the answer.

Plopping on his chair he reached for his top drawer where numerous objects rolled around crashing into each other as he tugged it open. What he was looking for had settled at the bottom. Detective A. Eames, NYPD Major Case Squad, 1 Police Plaza, the card read. Greg was glad he hadn't thrown it out.

He dialled the number knowing that the long distance charge would show up on the hospital record.

Eventually the ringing stopped and a pleasant voice was heard. "Detective Eames, Major Case."

"It's Doctor House from Princeton. You came to see me about the poisoning."

"Right." She didn't need a reminder of who he was. The name House immediately put her in a bad mood, her tone soured. "What can I do for you?"

"Somebody's framing my fellow. I was hoping your detective skills would come in handy."

H

Meanwhile, at Trenton New Jersey State Prison, House's fellow was cornered. The corrections officers had come to his tier and taken all the inmates there to the showers. The old compound had the newer shower facilities separate from the cellblocks so Chase had taken a change of clothes and a towel and gone with the rest of the procession. Montrose had been behind him the whole way and Chase had felt more secure with him there. Montrose had become, over the past few weeks, Chase's only ally. The older man was hot and cold with regards to his new cellmate, which confused Chase immensely. The man had paid for him to be assigned to his cell. Rumour had it he'd paid Theriault over ten thousand dollars, yet the man had never once touched him in a remotely sexual manner.

Usually the two just silently tolerated the other's company. Montrose had showed him the ropes and even included him with his posse on occasion. Still at other times Montrose was almost hostile towards him, taking great effort to exclude him from the rest of his group. Chase had yet to determine whether there was any pattern to Montrose's behaviour but today had seemed like a good day.

Montrose had stayed close, a watchful shadow, until they'd made it to the showers where they'd been separated. Theriault had divided the men up into groups. Chase thought that it was deliberate that he separated him and his only ally. Theriault had been on his case since he arrived, pulling him aside to talk privately with him, stopping by his cell more often than any other. All the encounters left his nervous.

Now as he stood with his back against the lockers, four large men in front of him, Chase wondered if Theriault had known this was going to happen. Theriault kept telling him to "expect an initiation" and there had been a strange malevolence in his smile when he separated the groups for the different shower rooms.

"Don't make this hard for yourself," a tanned man advised as he took a step towards Chase.

Automatically Chase's fist drew up causing the other men to laugh.

"You going to fight us?" Another asked. "It's always more fun when they fight." Those seemed to be the magic words. Without warning the four men advanced. Chase threw a punch catching one guy in the jaw. That would be the best shot he got off in this encounter. Several blows were delivered to his face and stomach by the group of assailants. Outnumbered by the four men, each of whom outweighed him, Chase was soon helpless. A strip of fabric was tied to gag his mouth and muffle his cries for help.

Around them Chase pleaded with his eyes for another inmate to help him. One of the unwritten rules of Trenton was not to involve yourself in fights that had nothing to do with you. Nobody helped him.

As the assault played out in the corner the other prisoners stripped and went to shower. A few cast looks towards him but that was all. One of the younger inmates approached a look in his eye that said he was outraged and ready to fight. He was stopped halfway to Chase's side by an older, wiser friend and was dragged off. Chase was alone.

They wrestled him to the floor. One inmate slid behind him to hold his arms back as the others tore at his grey uniform. The tanned man with dark hair that given him the chilling advice earlier undid the fastener at the top of Chase pants and pulled. Chase's panic heightened and his kicking legs caught the tanned man in the groin. He rolled to the side clutching at his injured area while another inmate replaced him to strip Chase. This time the third man held Chase's legs. The pants were soon slid to his mid thighs taking the underwear down with it. Naked from waist to thighs and restrained securely Chase struggled, twisting side to side in vain attempts to keep the rough hands from exploring his body.

"Turn him over." The order came from the man recovering from the blow to the crotch.

Chase renewed his efforts to escape as they tried to flip him. He didn't see the fist coming at his face. The sudden bright white pain disoriented him for a second, just enough time to turn him on to his front.

"I bet you're real tight," The man holding down his torso crooned viciously. Chase could barely breathe with the weight on top of him. When the hands began to grab at his ass his cry of protest was nothing more then a whimper with the gag in his mouth.

"Shut up!" A hand fisted in his hair. Though it was shorter now than it was when he'd first arrived there was still enough length to grab on to and strike Chase's head into the tile floor. The cracking sound reverberated through his skull bring with it a darkness around his eyes that he could only just keep from taking over his entire vision.

"Hurry the fuck up!"

"You'll get your turn."

The words sounded like they were coming from far away yet the panic that gripped him, the nausea, rage and fear were so close they suffocated all other thought.

Just as quickly as the attack began it was over. Chase lay on the floor panting trying to figure out what had happened.

"You're okay."

Chase didn't realize the weight pinning his body was gone until a gentle hand touched his shoulder and he flinched away.

"Whoa! Easy,"

The man crouched next to him Chase recognized. He was Yarrow. He'd introduced himself just two days after he'd arrived, helped him get the shears from the prison barber shop to cut his hair. Chase hadn't interacted much with the that particular inmate since then. The animosity between Yarrow and his cellmate, Montrose, made contact or interaction difficult and Chase didn't need to make an enemy of one of his few, intermittent allies.

"You're okay. Let me help you." Yarrow reached forward towards Chase's face. Chase startled. He tried to move away but as he was already in the corner all he could do was get himself to a seated position with his back against the wall. "I'm just going to untie this," Yarrow placated as he slowly reached to Chase's face. He let this fingers brush across his cheeks as they travelled around the attractively sculpted face. The knot came away after only a few seconds of work. Yarrow pulled it away from the bleeding lip with care. "You alright?"

Chase tried to nod. His limbs felt limp. The commands he sent to his hands to get them to pull up his pants resulted only in shivers. He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself.

"It's okay. We got here in time," Yarrow's voice informed.

Chase managed to gain a little control and noticed that there was no pain other than from his head and gut. He hadn't been raped.

He cringed at the word. Drawing back deeper into the corner and taking breaths to still the unrest.

"Vin, help me out here," Yarrow gestured for his friend and bodyguard who'd been standing a few feet away to come over and assist. The two helped Chase to his feet. Yarrow righted his clothing though there was nothing he could do about the ripped shirt.

"I'm okay," Chase said weakly.

"For the most part," Yarrow agreed as he probed with careful fingers the area around cut on Chase's forehead. Just above his temple near his left brow the laceration was leaking blood. The warm liquid dribbled down the pale face tracing his cheekbone and jaw before dripping to the still warm tiles where Chase had been pinned only a minute ago.

"I'll get him to the infirmary," Yarrow told Vin. The heavily muscled man nodded and watched as his boss led the kid out of the shower room. They'd "saved" Chase from being assaulted. Of course it didn't really count since Yarrow was the one that had set up the whole thing –with some help from Theriault. Vin did wonder though, if they hadn't come in when they had would the kid have been raped. The assailants were under orders to make it look like they were going to. They may have gotten carried away. It wasn't everyday something that nice-looking walked into a prison.

Vin shrugged and went to take his shower. This was Yarrow's mess. If asked he had nothing to do with it. Loyalty in prison only went so far.

H

The prison infirmary was small considering the number of inmates housed there. They were staffed by two doctors and a few nurses. Chase couldn't help thinking it was a crappy posting even as the cut on this face was cleaned and pinched closed with two small strips of sterile tape.

"It shouldn't leave a scar," the nurse told him. Chase didn't hear, still lost in his own world. The nurse noticed his inattentiveness and called the doctor over.

"Robert."

Yes, Chase responded in his head.

"Robert." This time a bright light being shone in his eye accompanied his name. He flinched away from it.

"What are you doing?"

The doctor put away his pen-light. "Trying to get a response from you. How are you feeling?"

"Okay." He realized too late that if he said he felt bad he probably could have stayed in the infirmary and avoided general population for a little while longer.

"The cut's not bad. It shouldn't scar and other than that and some bruises you'll be okay."
Chase nodded.

"He can go back now," the doctor told the CO. The corrections officer took Chase by the arm and guided him out. The nurse cast him a sympathetic look knowing without having to be told what problems he faced. She went back to work treating the other low-lives.

"What happened?"

Chase walked past Montrose ignoring his question. If he'd ignored someone else like that he'd have paid for it but Montrose had never hit him and didn't seem like he was going to start. With stiff movement he laid himself out over the lower bunk. His eyes slipped closed as soon as his body's protest died down.

"Robert."

The mouth that called his name was close to him. Montrose was probably crouched in front of the bunk, eying him, searching for or contemplating something. That seemed to be the position Montrose took whenever Chase slipped into one of these funks. Three weeks of physical and sexual assaults, threats and taunts left him weakened and prone to episodes of melancholy. He felt heavy and tired. And his head was pounding. Chase opened his eyes and for a moment he thought he saw someone else. He blinked and the effect was lost. The nose was too broad, the cheeks too drawn. The lines around the eyes were too prominent, although the pain behind them still seemed familiar.

"You said you knew why he liked me." Chase watched the other man's face drop further.

"Yeah, I did." Montrose had let the words slip the first time he'd met Chase, when the young man was dropped off at the front of his cell.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Montrose sighed heavily trying to expel the unrest rapidly building. It didn't work. He scooted back until he sat on the floor leaning against the wall. "How did you find out?"

"You look like him. And Yarrow made a comment."

"Lockdown!" the call from somewhere in the cellblock came. A few seconds later the doors to their cell and all the cells in the block slid closed and locked. Chase relaxed a little, feeling less vulnerable locked away from the other inmates.

"You've been talking to Yarrow?"

Chase could hear the tension in Montrose's voice. He knew that Montrose and Yarrow didn't get along. Right now he didn't care. "He helped me today."

"Really?"

Chase remained silent on that issue instead repeating his previous question. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Montrose looked out the barred entranced.

Chase continued in a numb tone of voice. "He didn't talk about you and I tried not to push. Maybe I should have. Because there's something going on here...secrets that have come back to haunt." He watched with detachment the rise and fall Montrose's Adam's apple as he swallowed something bitter and sad. The main lights in the atrium went off with a clang. The dimmer lighting from the tiers caught the excess water glazing over the older man's shadowed eyes. Numb as he was, as uncharitable and unsympathetic as he sometimes was when the anger as Zid overcame him, Chase did understand a little why he'd kept locked away everything about this particular topic. No one wanted to advertise that they were the son of a criminal. "Why didn't you tell me that you were Zinedine's father?"

A shuddered breath found its way past trembling lips. "Because I didn't want you to know…that I was the reason…" His chest hitched. "…the reason that my son…killed himself."

Chase didn't react, too isolated from the moment and the revelation. Montrose stared forward looking mostly through him as he again faced the mistake he made so long ago that had lead to both the creation and demise of the best thing he'd ever had in his life.

Montrose hurried to cover his face as a tear fell from his eyes. He wasn't fast enough and Chase saw. He felt his own heart begin to ache for his loss and Montrose's. Zinedine had only mentioned briefly that he was estranged from his father. Chase had encouraged him to make peace (like he'd wanted to and wished he had when he had the chance). Zid had sighed and told him he'd think about it. Instead he went to his mother trying to patch things up between them. It obviously hadn't gone well because the day he returned he'd ended his life.

A choked sob returned Chase to the moment and he watched as Zid's father did what he never could. Not even for someone he loved.

H

"Detective Drew Freedman received a commendation in Princeton PD for his work taking down a section of a pretty small-time organized crime ring. That seems to be the highlight of his career. The rest had just been reprimand after reprimand. Excessive force, evidence tampering, suborning perjury; it reads like a "Don't do what Johnny Don't does" of Law Enforcement." Eames settled into her chair behind the desk that was pressed back to back with her partner's.

"How is he still on the force?"

Eames shook her head, quickly scanning the file. "His father was a cop –hopefully a better one than him –probably an old boys club."

"With a history of evidence tampering somebody should be suspicious of the sudden appearance of a hair on the clothing on one of the victims. A hair with a root for DNA comparison no less. So, he's on our radar…but…" Bobby rested his chin in his hand. "Maybe the question to answer isn't who framed Doctor Chase, it's why." He paused to think for a moment. "What was the name of the guy who shot Doctor House?"

Eames flipped through her notes. "Moriarty, Jack."

Goren swivelled his chair to the laptop computer off to the side of his desk and typed the name into the police database. "He's incarcerated at Trenton."

"Let me guess, it's same place Doctor Chase was sent."

"If Moriarty is still looking to hurt the doctor that ruined his life, maybe he's decided to do it with a surrogate. The poisoning proved that it's possible to get to Doctor House through the people around him."

"If Moriarty is the one behind the poisoning then he must have friends on the outside, friends who copied Cooper." They'd arrested the man suspected of murdering the doctors in New York with the gyromitrin poison just four days ago. From what they could tell, he hadn't struck anywhere outside the city which left Dr. Chase's poisoning as an anomaly.

Goren nodded in agreement. "I don't think he has the type of connections that could get Chase framed for a double murder though. That would take a lot more power. We have to figure out who else benefits from all this."

H

Time crawled by. Weeks slowly being made up of the days within, the sun rising and falling with each and brought in its cycle only the promise of more tension and more pain for Rob. He could barely separate the days from each other, drained as he was. They bled into each other and sometimes he bled on those days. He never forgot the visitation days though. He looked forward to them. He wasn't keen on letting his colleagues see him in his current state but he wasn't about to turn down an opportunity to get away from the general population. Today he'd seen Wilson who was a nice change from the usual rotation of Foreman, House and Cameron, Sunday, Wednesday and Friday respectively. Wilson had told him that House and the team were busy with a case and he'd envied them so badly, yearned so strongly to be back at the hospital with them.

Wilson informed him of the case and Chase had jumped in to the distraction with both feet.

Wilson had been going on about the strange MRI results that had stumped even House when Chase had reached out to touch his tie and the words abruptly ended.

"Sorry," Chase had apologized but not taken his fingers away form the soft silk.

"It's okay," Wilson forgave easily. He hadn't interrupted. He'd watched the dulled gaze trace the dizzying pattern on the tie and was thankful to whatever flash of inspiration or bad taste had led him to buying and wearing this hideous piece of clothing. Chase let go of the bright piece of clothing after his internal commentary about the distinct lack of color in the prison was over. Wilson had gone back to explaining about the case their colleagues were working on and then time had run out.

Chase had given him a weak and heavily forced smile as he said goodbye and turned to go. Wilson had only debated for a second the wisdom of what he was considering before he actually did it. He pulled Chase into a hug. Not a tentative one or a quick one. His arms were closed tight around the frame of the intensivist and their bodies pressed together. When Chase had responded by burying his face in the other man's neck and hugging him back Wilson closed his eyes and wished for an end to this terrible mistake.

Chase could still feel the ghost of the oncologist's warm touch on his neck and the whisper of breath across his ear. Stepping into the large room where the smells of food emanated took away the soothing memory of the day's earlier visit and brought back the cold reality of his setting. The faint but chilly breeze tore away the warmth and chilled his mood as well. He was barely responsive to the man behind him that tried to engage in a conversation while they waited.

"He told me about you."

"I wasn't aware he was speaking to you at all." Chase said evenly though with a bit of strain. God, he hated meal times; too many inmates, too many eyes following him, too many comments not quite behind his back. Montrose would have to forgive him the tension. The food was bad enough to keep anyone away and the atmosphere of the mess hall only made the place that more repulsive. He'd skipped a lot of meals and because of that lost some weight that he didn't need to lose in the first place. He only risked coming here when he worried he'd become too weak to defend himself from another altercation. It was a hard threshold to gauge because coming here put him at risk for more unfriendly encounters. Damned if you do, damned if you don't was a fairly apt summation.

The only other occasions that he braved the dangers entailed with getting something to eat was when Montrose was with him. The bigger man was no longer hot and cold about him –maybe a lukewarm. Chase deduced he was worried about stirring prison politics should he include Chase in his posse or if he just let him out on his own. So far this method of transient interest seemed to be working. It was also doing a number on Chase's nerves.

It must have been his fidgeting that pushed Montrose into trying to get Chase's mind out of the prison since the calm he'd had after visitation seemed to have fled. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, even though his left ankle protested the motion –another keepsake of another narrowly evaded encounter, as was the bruise under his right eye, the scrapes on his knuckles and the smattering of dark areas hidden by his loose prison clothing. He tried not to look like he was hugging himself but he was cold. There was a draft in the large open room that served as the dining area for the state's guests of Trenton.

Chase shivered again. Didn't anybody else feel that?

"I suppose it doesn't really count as speaking. It was just a letter." Montrose shrugged easily while his eyes surveyed their surroundings and the edgy man in front of him. "It was still nice to hear from him. I think I have you to thank for that."

Chase was barely keeping up with the topic. "Really? How so?" He startled as a tray was dropping producing a cacophony of discordant and sharp tones. The mess hall broke out in applause, further alienating and emphasizing the inmate who had lost his meal to gravity and a conveniently placed foot.

"He mentioned you. Said that he was writing so that he could at least tell you he tried to contact me. Not sure if he really wanted to send it…"

"He did, didn't he?" He hid behind the sarcasm as another man he knew was so fond of doing. Though there was not trace of it in his tone he was surprised that the one brief discussion with he'd had with Zid about his father had resulted in something. The new information only made his loss that much deeper.

"Yeah, he did. He said he really liked you. Told me some about you. It seemed to be the most natural part of the whole message –when he described you. He was happy."

The discussion trailed off. The line slowly shifted forward dragging the two men along with many others with it.

"Could I see it?" Chase asked over his shoulder a minute of silence later.

Montrose shook his head. "Don't have it anymore. It's lost or…something." He wasn't going to tell Chase that he thought it had been stolen. That would lead to too many questions.

"…oh."

Emmanuel stared at the back of the blonde head. The short strands at the back where Chase had done a better job cutting it were darker than the strands up top where he'd had more difficulty. He wasn't going to let Chase know that he suspected it was Yarrow who now had the letter. It was worthless, just a personal item and he'd learnt not to get too attached to anything lest it be construed as something of value and then held against you. It was hard to do that when it was a correspondence from your only child. It also hard not to want to protect the only person that had ever made his child happy (Zinedine had said so in his letter). With the letter in his hands Yarrow must have known too and an unsuspecting Chase had been dragged into a conflict that in a better world he'd have no place in.

End Chapter 8

I had to split my intended Chapter 8 into two parts because it some how gained a few pages when I was revising. I'll post chapter nine in a couple of days (probably Friday maybe Thursday) since it's just about done.