Author's note: A couple of people have mentioned this now, so I thought I'd better mention what I'm crossover-ing (for those of you unfamiliar with Renfield). But just in case there's anyone who'd rather not know for some reason--because it would give too much away, or maybe you'd just rather guess--I'm going to stick it in an author's note at the bottom of this page, with enough spoiler space that you can ignore it if you want.

Chase's day went from surreal directly to hellish, only without getting any less surreal. He reached Renfield's room to a chorus of sobbing from the ward nurses. Foreman met him at the room door. "His spine was broken," he said, sounding as if he were fighting for calm through a lot of anger.

"What?" For just a moment Chase was so baffled he wasn't even sure who they were talking about any more. Glancing past Foreman he saw Renfield on the bed, motionless and white; no one had yet covered the body. "But that doesn't make any sense, Foreman. How the hell could that have happened?"

Foreman gave him a pitying look. "He's been murdered, Chase," he said patiently.

* * * * * * *

At least the three girls weren't outside House's door. That was a small mercy; Chase couldn't have endured drama-teen hysteria just now. And if they hadn't been hysterical--if they'd reacted to their friend's death with indifference--he might have choked one of them.

They'd just dropped Renfield and moved on, he reminded himself. It wasn't nice, but teenagers weren't always nice. There was nothing sinister about it, and there was no reason for the creeping fear he'd felt at the thought of them. Right?

His hands were shaking, he realized. This whole situation was unsettling him.

Forcing himself to breathe calmly, Chase entered the room. House was asleep, a still figure beneath the blankets. Chase shivered in the cool air, and waited a moment, but House showed no sign of waking.

For one childish moment Chase wanted to shake him awake, to force someone else to be the grownup and, just for once, take some responsibility away from him. He thought of his father, shook off a surge of despair, and reminded himself that House was, well, House: not exactly an empathetic shoulder to cry on at the best of times, and injured now, and with his own busload of depression to cope with.

Back in the hall, he found Foreman had followed him, and was waiting patiently. His spirits lifted, just a little.

* * * * * * *

"The whole thing with Renfield makes no sense. Nothing happening around here makes any sense." Foreman still sounded angry. "No one saw anything, Chase. Not one person noticed anyone near his room, and yet someone walked in and broke his back like a matchstick. How is that even possible?"

"What I need," Chase mused, "is House." They'd ended up back in Diagnostics, by habit, or perhaps seeking the comfort of familiarity. Except now it was cluttered up with the three new doctors, all seated around the table, cooling their heels while House recovered.

"Not an option," Foreman pointed out.

"Or someone who thinks just like House," Chase continued.

Foreman, sounding slightly relieved, said what they were both thinking, "There's no one who thinks just like House."

House's three teaching fellows had been politely pretending to ignore their conversation, but at this point Kutner spoke up. "Actually," he said, setting down his newspaper, "there kind of is. His name's Henry Dobson. Doctor Wilson probably has his number."

* * * * * * *

Henry Dobson wasn't even a doctor. Chase couldn't tell who was more annoyed, himself for having called him in, or Cuddy for having been summoned to meet with them. She had dark circles under her eyes, Chase noted, and the weary look of someone who has to shoulder the blame for a situation completely beyond her control. "There's a murder investigation going on upstairs," she was pointing out, "and we have children claiming to have been lured away from pediatrics. This is really not an optimal time for me to sit around talking about House."

And yet she didn't leave, Chase noted, which made him suspect that on some level she enjoyed talking about House. "You've visited him, since the accident. Did you notice anything different?" He'd meant the girls sitting in the hall, but Cuddy answered as if she assumed this must be about House himself.

"Of course he's different. He's devastated. He blames himself for Amber's death, and Wilson...." She let the sentence trail off, unable or unwilling to find words to describe the damage done to his friendship with Wilson.

"And you spent a lot of time sitting with him?" Dobson asked. Cuddy looked annoyed, as if she suspected the question implied something but she couldn't be sure what.

"We're friends," she said. "He's my employee. I'm concerned about him. Of course I spent a lot of time sitting with him."

"Of course you did," Dobson said soothingly. "And Doctor Wilson...?"

"Hasn't been around," Cuddy said, sounding tired and worried. Dobson looked sympathetic, but whatever he felt didn't stop him from questioning her--which was, Cuddy thought, eerily like House himself.

"And the other doctors--House's teaching fellows--they've been to see him as well?" he asked.

"They've dropped in, yes, but not for long," Cuddy said. "There's nothing they can do. And I think it upsets his team to see him like this. I know it irritates him to have them watching him. At first I let them see him more often, since while he's recovering they have less to do, but I finally told them they were of more use doing some clinic duty than hanging around staring at him."

"Interesting," Dobson said, and left.

* * * * * * *

"I see your observation skills haven't improved any, " Dobson said calmly, pouring himself a coffee and looking annoyingly at home in Diagnostics. "Just goes to show you: even professionals only see what they expect to see."

Taub flared up predictably. "Renfield wasn't even our patient," he snapped. "It wasn't our job to observe him."

"I wasn't talking about Renfield," Dobson replied, sounding maddeningly amused. Even more maddeningly, he left without explaining what he'd meant.

You'd think, Henry thought, as he headed downstairs to find Doctor Chase, that with all these qualified doctors around the place, someone would have noticed some of the pertinent changes in House.

Like how he was walking and talking but not actually breathing, for instance.

* * * * * * *

Author's Note: Hi again. So, about that whole crossover thing in the title:

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This is basically a smush of House MD and Dracula. Chase is more or less playing the role of Jonathan Harker (I'll skip going into who everyone else is supposed to be for now, so as not to bore you all to death). So it's the settings and characters of House, living through some of the events of Dracula. (Yes, I know that's odd, but not as odd as that House/Twilight oneshot I did.)