Libera me

"House," Nyx said his name tentatively.

"Don't," House replied. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Whatever you say," Nyx nodded. "But are you sure?"

"I don't want to talk about it right now because I'm not sure I believe it," House sighed. "Or maybe I do believe but just can't process. Whatever it is now is not the time to talk."

"Fine," Nyx accepted. They sat in silence for some time, just watching the river – Acheron – and smelling the roses in Nyx's daughter's garden. Finally Nyx observed: "So you let Chase go."

"Slavery is still illegal in New Jersey," House pointed out.

"You say that like you would have kept him against his will if you could have," Nyx smiled.

"If I could why wouldn't I?" House shrugged.

"Because that is not who you are," Nyx stated.

"I tried to keep Dominika against her will," House reminded Nyx.

"Knowing full well that sooner or later she would get the message about her Green Card," Nyx countered. "You knew you were on stolen time with her and you just wanted her around as long as you could keep her. You didn't believe that she would ever stay of her own free will as you couldn't see what you could possibly offer her. You know you are a brilliant doctor, but away from that you see yourself as cranky cripple and you couldn't understand why she would stay with you. I still say she might well have been happy to stay had you been honest with her and just asked. But that ship has sailed. But just because you make mistakes in your personal life, doesn't mean you make similar mistakes with your team. You groomed Chase to leave you. In fact, you kicked him out once already."

"Yeah," House remembered. "He needed a kick in the butt. However, he didn't take the chance quite like I had wanted him to, but it turned out ok in the end. Sort of ok. He still married Cameron, which wasn't a good idea. She had way too much baggage for the marriage to work. They should have remained just friends. Even with benefits. But still just friends."

"So you took him back to set him on the right course again," Nyx pondered. "Do you believe he is ready now?"

"He has been ready for two years at least, if we talk about his abilities as a doctor," House stated. "He just needed to realise it and be mentally ready to do it. I suppose I owe Treiber thanks for the push he gave Chase."

"Did you know why Treiber hated Chase?" Nyx asked.

"Of course," House said. "Though Treiber was basing his hate on wrong conclusions."

"How so?" Nyx asked. "He lost his spot with you to Chase, didn't he?"

"He was good on paper," House granted. "In fact his was the stuff legends are made of. He didn't even have the black marks against him that I had and I could have picked almost any fellowship in the country when I went looking. My difficult personality, however, created some obstacles. But not so with Treiber. He really could pretty much point his finger and say 'I want that fellowship' and it would have been his. Pretty much. I'm the only one who doesn't give a hoot about paper, but even so he expected to be chosen – though I already had the reputation then for having a unique way and odd criteria of choosing my fellows. And I didn't want him. But Cuddy was all over me to hire him because he would have been great for the academic credentials of her hospital."

"You didn't want him?" Nyx repeated. "But then how did Chase come into that situation?"

"Cuddy got a phone call and she wanted me to hire Chase, too," House explained. "I bargained: if I hire Chase I don't have to hire Treiber."

"But that means that he was right," Nyx insisted. "Chase got his spot."

"I had three spots," House reminded her. "It took me another three months to find Cameron and six to find Foreman. Even without Chase I would not have hired Treiber but Chase got Cuddy off my back."

"Why didn't you want Treiber?" Nyx wondered. "He is a brilliant pathologist."

"That he is," House agreed. "He is methodical, thorough and never leaves a stone unturned before he is sure he knows why the patient died. He keeps score, he has statistics he remembers every mistake every doctor ever made on the care of the patients that end up in his morgue. He doesn't only find the mistakes, he identifies if they are procedural or just plain incompetence. If the mistake is in the hospital procedures – or even if change in procedures can help avoiding them, he can figure out a way to improve the procedures. He is a brilliant pathologist. But I didn't see any flair in him for diagnosing the living. He certainly didn't give me anything that I felt I could work with."

"Did Chase?" Nyx asked.

"Chase had a spark," House smiled remembering. "Banked down – hardly surprising given who his father was and what had happened to his mother. He was rather lost, just trying to survive. But push him, and suddenly he came up with the goods. I always thought that he was the one who would eventually follow in my footsteps and end up with a diagnostic team of his own."

"Yet everyone always said that Foreman was the one most like you," Nyx mused.

"He was just the one who most wanted to imitate me," House corrected. "Until he finally realised that to be good at what you do, you have to be true to yourself. If you're trying to be somebody else you will always trip over yourself."

"True," Nyx nodded. "He is doing pretty well as the Dean."

"He always was a paper pusher," House sneered but with affection. "But he, too, has grown complacent."

"You're going to shake him up?" Nyx was surprised.

"Chase's departure may do that without any help from me," House pondered. "And I'm not going to do anything to shake him up. At least not for that reason. But things are changing. Coming here from Prison was strange but in some ways comforting. However, I had not planned on ever being back here. This past year has been almost like an intermezzo, something in between instead of the main event. I don't know what is going to happen; all I know is that all doors are open and I don't know who is going to go through each of them."