"That's all, your honor," the defense attorney said, her voice clipped and curt, the slightest air of smugness radiating from where she stood. House watched her give Chase a sharp stare as she returned to the table where Lowell was sitting, her heels clicking against the linoleum floor. Chase's brow was lined with small beads of sweat, but his eyes were empty as he stared down at the floor, face so still that it gave away no indication of what he was feeling. It was clear that he had felt the cold loo he had been given, and he let his chin drop ever so slightly. In those silent moments, House could see his shoulders move in the rhythm of stifled sigh, a gentle stutter of breath. This last round of questioning had been tense, and it had been difficult to listen to Chase answer such a personal series of inquiries.

The novels always described tears as diamonds, or as liquid silver, sparkling as they ran down pale and tired skin, a form of art made with the human body. But House didn't see the single trail of moisture down Chase's left cheek as anything beautiful or spectacular, not as art to be revered. He saw it as a fracture, a deep fissure in worn earth, the indication of a soul split wide open and bare for the world to see. His heavy heart had been torn from his chest, and a jury was permitted to peer in upon the darkest fears of a broken man. The testimony that spilled from Chase's mouth had been as raw and heavy as magma pouring from split ground, ash billowing from a dormant giant throughout the sickening retelling.

Chase stood up from his seat, eyes still pointed at the ground, as he was dismissed from the stand. His return to sit next to his attorney was clearly a retreat, a desperate surrender back to the only safety he could carve for himself in the cold courtroom. Anyone could tell that he was growing weary, worn and broken from the legal process that had dragged on far too long. House had sworn he had hear Lowell's attorney faltering as she claimed that her client was innocent of all charges, as though she knew her words were lies. He knew that the evidence against Lowell was practically impenetrable, and his own defenses were weak, at best. But they were still in the trenches, fighting for justice, against a man that had too much time and too much money.

The jury had been growing restless. The fact that they were present was a miracle; more than nine in ten criminals pleaded guilty before going to trial. Even then, only a fraction of those persisted to the point that they sat before a judge and jury, facing a criminal trial in all of its strained and exhausted proceedings. In this case, the fact that both the prosecutor and the defendant had pockets deep enough to fund their lawyers was a critical distinction.

At this point, however, a trial was torturous for all involved. There was not so much as a shadow of a doubt that Lowell was guilty. There were witnesses that had come forward to admit they heard Chase screaming, but had been too cowardly to investigate. There were others that confessed they had seen Lowell and Chase walk off together, but had thought nothing of it at the time. There were security tapes that captured Chase staggering back to his hotel room, his hand mangled and bloody, body hunched and folded as he walked. But still, Lowell insisted on fighting under the plea of 'not guilty', questioning the legitimacy of the timestamps on the tapes, questioning the recollection of eyewitnesses, and even trying to wear down Chase through a series of unnecessary personal questions.

"Guilty." The moment that the words passed the judge's lips was a solemn one, a breath of truth frozen in time. House had held no doubt that the outcome of the trial would fall in Chase's favor, but he had expected there to be more weight when he heard the verdict. But no, the singular word swelled in the air and burst in a silent exhalation, diffusing the tension that had been passed between all present in the court room. There were no cinematic effects, as House had almost expected there to be. Some people sighed. Shoulders relaxed. A few half-smiles crept onto the faces of the witnesses that had testified, and the jury shared a collective moment of contentedness.

Chase slumped over in his seat, cradling his casted hand close to his chest, and his attorney put her hand on his back, running it back and forth over his shoulders. House wished he could go over and give his employee a similarly comforting gesture, but knew that he had done enough for the time being. Chase knew he was there, watching, supporting, pushing him along through the entire battle. When it had mattered most, House had been there for him.

Maybe they would embrace in the hallway, or perhaps not at all. Maybe they would stand in silence and chew down their painkillers together, no sounds except broken tablets against dry teeth to span the gap between them. Maybe they would pretend that they were moved with emotion, instead of facing the truth that the path to justice had left them hollow.

Maybe, perhaps, they would go out and stand in the streets of a rainy New York and despise living just as much as before.

-H-O-U-S-E-

"Concurrent sentences," Chase muttered beneath his breath, as though he were saying something filthy. His fingertips brushed idly against the glass full of cool liquid amber, the frothy bubbles displacing as his digits moved the drink back and forth, just a few millimeters in either direction. His mouth was twisted into a tight grimace. "Twenty-five years, with possibility of parole. All of his damn sentences served at once."

"What did you expect? It's not like he murdered you," House retorted, his upper lip curling into the shadow of a snarl. He knew his response didn't hold any real bite, but he was tired, and the alcohol hadn't begun to numb the static in his skull. He was ready to escape the monotony that litigation had ensnared him in, but Chase was clinging to the result of the sentencing with a rabid ferocity.

"He murdered my career," Chase spit back, just as bitter as House ever was. "He stole months of my life."

"No one's saying he didn't," House tried to level, taking another drink from his own glass. Internally, he was just as upset by the news that Lowell would likely die a free man. But by now, he was used to walking on eggshells with a bitter intensivist that had become both volatile and unpredictable. "You got the best-case scenario. He's guilty. He's going to prison, serving the maximum sentence for the crimes he was convicted. Your attorney was even flirting with you at the end." But the humor was gone from Chase's eyes, the only flickers remaining as empty embers of anger.

"And it's not good enough. They're saying that he's a doctor, that he's saved lives, that the world is a better place with him in it. Whose world is better? Not mine! Not anyone else he's destroyed. He's not the misguided hero his lawyer was trying to make him out to be."

"They'd rather see him as an oncologist than a rapist, just like I'd rather see you as an intensivist instead of an unemployed opiate addict." House toyed with the silence for a moment, knowing that his words were cruel, but he felt no need to retract them. "Doesn't feel so good when you're the butt of the joke now, does it?"

"Cut the shit, House." Chase let his now-shaggy hair cover his face as he stared down at the table, unable to meet his former employer's eyes. "You just hate seeing me turn into the same thing you see in the mirror. A sorry excuse for a man, that's what I am, and that's what you are. I guess misery loves company."

"You don't get to blame me anymore." House gestured to the TV playing soundlessly at the back of the bar. "Look at the news. It's been three months since the verdict. It's been more than half a year since you were attacked. Life has gone on in the world outside of this case. It's time to get your life back on track. Frankly, it should have been on track a long time ago. He didn't destroy you, you're just wallowing in self-pity."

Chase's left fist banged down on the table, causing both of their drinks to slosh around in their glasses as the old wood shuddered back and forth. His right fingertips gripped his drink just tight enough to keep it upright through his fit of anger. He still hadn't taken a single sip.

"House, I'm trying. I'm doing my physical therapy every day for hours and I can hardly keep up. I'm sitting in that damn office talking to that woman about my feelings and smelling her insufferable perfume for two hours a week. I'm doing all that I can. I can't go back to my job yet, not like this." Chase looked up, and his eyes were red. It was a familiar sight by now, one that had stopped causing House as much pain as it once did. He could hardly remember how Chase used to be, or if there had ever been life in his shadowy eyes. There was familiarity in his sorrowful visage, a weary mouth that hadn't smiled in far too long.

"I didn't say you aren't trying. I just need you to stop acting as though your life is over because it's not going the direction you want." Absentmindedly running his fingers over the crater in his leg, House turned to reflecting on the few months of his life where he was convinced he'd be unable to carry on in his career, much less living. And as he had taken to when it came to conversing with Chase, he moved to speak from the heart. One wouldn't have been able to guess his sincerity from the acid in his tone, but he still spoke genuinely. "You want to work at the hospital, right?"

To this question, Chase stared back at him blankly, and House rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Dear God, I pity your professors in med school. Do the math. You're a medical professional, aren't you, doctor? Just because you lose one hand doesn't mean you lost your mind. That said, you will if you keep popping pills like it's your day job. Remember that not every doctor out there specializes like you did."

"There's no place for me in a hospital, much less as your employee. I had something that was once in a lifetime, and he ruined it." The last words came out with a whimper, but House had just about had his fill of self-pity for the evening.

"Someone else always ruins us. That's life. It sucks. Grow up, Chase. Your story doesn't have to end here if you don't want it to. Start working again. Doesn't have to be surgery. Doesn't have to be diagnostic medicine. Stand in the pharmacy and push pills into bottles all day if you have to, I don't care. But if you don't at least try, I'm going to put someone else in your place."

Silence. Chase blinked, and the redness in his eyes made them seem much darker and much more sad than they had been just a moment ago. When he whispered, his voice had a sullen rasp.

"What do you mean, my place?" Chase asked. House scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"You thought that I would keep Foreman and Cameron without finding some sort of replacement? If I didn't think you were coming back, I would have replaced you by now. The longer you wait to get back to work, the harder my job is, and that pisses me off. Your place is waiting for you, but only if you show me you still give a shit. Lowell is gone. He's done for. Twenty-five years, life, it doesn't matter. You have to move on and build yourself a future, or you'll be forgotten." Silence again. It was all true; House had been waiting for Chase's inevitable rebound, for his full recovery. Neither had come yet. Now he was offering the last and final push he was willing to give the broken intensivist.

Chase's throat tensed as he swallowed, looked down, and swallowed again. His right hand twitched, the gnarled scar tissue rippling as the worn muscles worked beneath patchwork skin. Shaking fingers wrapped around the body of the glass hesitantly, and after a moment, the grip seemed sure. Raising the drink, causing it to tremor with an uncertain hand, Chase gave a solemn nod.

"I suppose I can drink to that."

-H-O-U-S-E-

House's face was twisted into a visage of bitter irritation, his eyes squinted as he brought the stack of papers closer to his eyes. Though he could read the words just fine, he knew that the blonde doctor that had written the nots was watching him from across the hall, coming closer with each footstep.

"I didn't know I'd need a translator to start reading patient charts," he shouted towards Chase, shaking the papers so they rattled against one another. Walking into the room, Chase gave a sidelong glance at the patient, who was heavily sedated for the time being, before marching straight up to the diagnostician. Clearly irritated at House's antics, Chase snatched the papers from House's hand, and read them over.

"It's just a note to do additional imaging on the bile ducts. Cameron mentioned something about biliary cirrhosis at our last meeting, and it just made me think to check to see if there were any abnormalities in the duodenum-"

"Sure," House interrupted, snatching the file back and shaking the papers back and forth again. While Chase seemed less than amused at his employer mocking the perpetual tremor in his right hand, he did nothing more than roll his eyes and walk over to the patient's cluster of monitors, scanning the numbers with apparent thoughtfulness.

"Operating's still a risk if his BP doesn't stabilize," Chase said thoughtfully, clearly more to himself than to House. The diagnostician silently agreed, but he knew that it would be senseless in giving verbal confirmation in the off chance it would be misinterpreted as praise. He gave instructions instead, the possible side-effects of each action playing out like a movie in his mind.

"Go get Foreman and have him ready for a lumbar puncture." Rather than obediently trotting away at his request, Chase paused, staring down at the patient. After a moment, he looked at House, his lips drawn in a thin line before he mustered the courage to speak.

"I think I can do it, House. I've been doing injections just fine," Chase pleaded, his eyes sparkling with rare hope. The former was true; House had been watching the intensivist learn to steady his hand, hold onto pens, grip syringes, and learn to write his name all over again. He had watched the scar tissue on Chase's hand stretching and flexing with tender new muscles, trying to remember how to live as he once had. Chase had been surviving on the team as nothing more than a clever mind to bounce theories off of, for his expertise and creativity hadn't dulled with his physical injuries. But he wasn't ready to move on from this role quite yet, and they both knew it.

"If you think I'm letting you near a patient's spine, Captain Parkinson's, you're wrong," House said, shaking his head in feigned disappointment before limping a few steps closer to the younger man. "If you can make your handwriting legible, maybe, just maybe, I'll consider letting you try putting in a catheter or something. I'm keeping you far away from the nervous system for the time being." As the last word came out of his mouth, House moved past Chase into the hall, doing his best to avoid the crestfallen face of the former intensivist. He didn't quite move fast enough, however, for he caught the few words that Chase whispered in passing.

"Essential tremors are incurable. There's nothing more they can do for me. I can't get any better. My mind's fucked and my hand's worse. This is as good as it's going to get."

House shook his head, not evening turning to look back as he carried on into the hallway.

"And I'm a dead man walking on a dead leg. Don't think you're special. We're all lost causes."

-H-O-U-S-E-

Chase sat alone in his apartment, the lights on, and the hands on the clock pointing far past midnight. An open beer sat on the coffee table, alongside a slew of medical journals on peripheral neuropathy and equipment for home-based physical therapy. In his hands, he shifted a bottle of pills back and forth, hearing the tablets bounce off of one another at a pitch that terrorized his tender ears. He first heard the rattling in House's pocket, and then in his own, a never ending percussion, for they were both chasing their pain like dogs chasing their tails.

The demons lived in their crushed spirits, dead dreams that rotted in hollow hearts. As Chase visualized, the blood in the heart turned black, and brought that pain to their minds, where it festered into an unbearable, silent agony. It was practically inescapable, but if he did just enough, he could forget. If he drank enough, if he swallowed enough pills, if he smoked enough, the ghosts of hands on his body went away, and the stinging in his fingers was numbed for just a while. If he abused himself, he was able to escape, if only for a few moments in time.

But he was tired. He was tired of the escapism. He was tired of living a bitter half-life full of shortcomings and personal failures. The sentencing was supposed to be his redemption, and his reinstatement his resurrection. Instead, he had been faced with wall after wall of disappointment. Colleagues glanced at him with what he could only describe as pity. His employers had restricted the amount of work that he was allowed to do until he demonstrated he had made a full recovery. Even months later, the occasional reporter showed up, begging for the gory details of his encounter with the oncologist-turned-rapist. Balancing this with regular physical therapy, appointments with a psychologist, and his job, had brought him near his breaking point.

Am I really nothing more than a lost cause? Am I a dead man walking? He studied the pills again, tempted to pry the lid off and swallow a few just to chase away the pain for the night. His eyes flickered back to the various tools he had been given by his physical therapist to hone his fine motor skills. With a trembling right hand, he reached out and picked up the yellow stress ball with a bright, smiling face on it. The emotion displayed by the ball was one that Chase had struggled to feel for quite some time now. But he took it nonetheless, and forced his shaking fingers to close tightly around it. The foam depressed slowly, the smiling face distorting as he pushed himself further and further, his fingers almost forming a complete fist.

Releasing the tension from the ball, he eyed the pill bottle once more.

No, he thought to himself. Dead men don't keep fighting. That man didn't kill me. He made me stronger. Without even taking the time to process the urge, Chase flung the pill bottle across the room, and it hit the wall before clattering to the floor. House's weathered and bitter scowl filled his mind's eye, and he found himself fighting back tears. He gripped down on the stress ball again, willing his fingers to have the strength that he had failed to find before. For just a moment, his fingers stopped shaking, as though they were frozen in time. A single tear rolled down his cheek, moved by the sudden bliss he found in his own stillness.

I'm going to be a better man, he promised himself as his fingers began to shake again. I'm not going to give up on my dreams.

-The End-

Thank you everyone for reading! Thank you to everyone that has stuck with me through the two years it took for me to finish this story. Two years! Incredible, isn't it? The fact that this story has gotten so much love, even after months without updates, fills my heart with joy. It was definitely a pleasure to write, and it makes me feel so good that you all were able to enjoy as well. Your reviews were what called me back to finish, even after a year of hiatus. The support I've received has been unparalleled.

I'd like to thank all of those regular reviewers, particularly FrankieFandom, The Ghostly Horse, belletane, Pallada, and autumnamberleaves for the never-ending love and support! You guys are the ones that inspired me to keep writing, and eventually write this story to a close. Your encouragement has made sure that I've never stopped writing, and the kind words have meant the world and more to me.

As for the end of this story, I've left the true ending up to the reader. We all know that sometimes, there is no happy ending. Whether or not Chase loses his battle is up to you and your imagination. I, personally, would like to imagine that he finds peace.

Remember, even if you think you may lose, or think that you're nothing but a lost cause, remember to keep fighting. Always, always keep fighting. Never give up on your dreams. Believe in yourself. Your life is worth living. You are incredible just as you are.