Author's Notes: Okay, folks. Here we are. The last chapter... and I'm going to miss this story, and all of you who review it! I can promise that I won't be continuing this universebut I love the House/Chase pairing too much to ever stop writing stories about them! So keep your eyes peeled. Also, my new story Get Out Alive is centered around the House-Chase-Wilson dynamic, so anyone interested should really check it out. I should be posting it sometime next week, if everything goes smoothly. So thank you everyone, and I hope you enjoy this final chapter!
Us and Them
Chapter 16
(One)
When Chase emerged from the bedroom a few hours later he found that Wilson was gone, but his car was still in the driveway. He must have heard them and figured that they'd made up, and therefore (had) felt that there was no need for him to hang around. He mentioned this to House, who was making his way out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.
"Yeah, well, I've walked in on him in enough broom closets to make up for it," House said glibly, sitting down on the couch. "What's for dinner?"
Chase scrunched up his nose. "Seriously? Not even in the on-call rooms—the closets?"
"I hear it's kinky," House said, wiggling his eyebrows. "We should try it sometime... And what's for dinner?"
"That's disgusting," Chase managed, trying not to think about it too much. "And I don't really care. I could try my hand at cooking, or we could order something. I'm not hungry."
"You were," House smirked, and Chase blushed lightly. "Seriously, you'd think that I was whipped cream the way that you were—"
"Okay!" Chase protested, fighting a grin desperately. "I get it! I was a little starved for sex, all right? Excuse me for having a sex drive..."
House was about to respond in kind, when Chase's cell phone began ringing, and he was forced to hold his comment.
Chase checked the caller ID, and was surprised to see that it read Cameron in bold letters. "Hello?" he said, pressing the talk button.
"Chase?" Cameron's voice came, sounding reluctant. "Where are you?"
"My apartment," Chase said. His confusion cleared up a second later when he realized that Cameron hadn't known that he'd left PPTH with Wilson to chase after House, and was probably looking for him. "Wilson and I left to find House," he explained quickly.
"Oh," Cameron said, and Chase could just see her frowning as she processed this information. "Is everything all right?"
"It's fine. Everything's fine," he said, watching House tilt his head back to stare at the ceiling and make exaggerated faces of boredom. Chase grinned. "Why are you calling?"
"You need to come back here—our patient's taken a turn for the worse, and we need to do a differential. Did you ever find House?" Cameron asked, and Chase couldn't tell from over the phone whether she was hopeful, or just curious.
"We found him," Chase told her. "We worked things out. What's happened to her? Is she seizing?"
"No," Cameron said. "She went into premature labor twice, and she's been delirious with fever—they can't deliver the baby while she's so sick, because they don't know how contagious it is."
"Have they got her in a clean room?" Chase asked, catching House's attention and making him frown curiously. "Were you treating her for anything?"
"We moved her to a clean room an hour ago, and we stopped the vitamin C supplements after the second premature—look, can you just come in?" Cameron asked. "Bring House with you."
"Sure," Chase said, feeling his heart sink as he realized that his nice, relaxing evening with House was off, and would be spent at the hospital instead. "We'll be there." He shut the phone without waiting to hear Cameron's goodbye, and faced House, who was practically bursting with questions by this point.
"Freaking Cameron..." House muttered as they walked up to the entrance of PPTH, cane in one hand and a bag of McDonalds in the other. "We could have done a differential over the phone, but noooo..."
"Now you know how we feel when you pull us up here at ungodly hours of the night," Chase replied as he fought to keep his hair from blowing into his face. He longed for Australia, where at least the winters were slightly warmer. He also wished that his hair wasn't so long, and House seemed to notice this.
"Problems with the hair, Chase?" he asked, watching with a self-satisfied smirk. "As fun as it is in bed, it looks like such a pain to deal with..."
"At least I have hair," Chase retorted, tucking a lock behind his ear, only to have it blown in front of his face once more.
"I have hair!" House protested indignantly, and he looked as if he would like to reach up at pat it, but couldn't due to his cane and the bag of food. "You and Wilson both think I'm half-bald—maybe it's one of those arrogance things. The longer your hair is, the shorter everyone else's looks."
"Yeah. That's it," Chase nodded as they had finally reached the main doors. Holding the door for House, he muttered, "Keep telling yourself that."
"Watch it, or you're going to wake up one morning knowing what bald really looks like," House threatened, stopping and waiting for Chase to follow.
"Go ahead. See if I don't make you walk to work," Chase threw back, walking into the warm building gratefully.
"I'll file for old-people abuse," House said, and he began walking again. "For cripple abuse. There's a word for that, I think..."
"If you say so," Chase said airily.
"And now you're patronizing me," House said reposefully. "I think that this could require some punishment. In some closets."
"Doctor BDSM?" Chase asked, raising his eyebrows.
"You were the one who dated the banker with the burn fetish," House said reasonably. He slowed as they approached the elevators and looked to Chase expectantly, indicating the bag and cane to remind him that he had his hands full.
Chase rolled his eyes and pushed the up button. "I'm the one who's currently dating a sadistic misanthrope."
"Touché," House said with a nod. The doors to the elevator opened and he stepped inside, and Chase followed quickly. The ride up to the fourth floor was quiet. They found Cameron and Foreman sitting in the conference room, Foreman leaning against the bookcase playing with the little Buddha statue and Cameron standing next to the whiteboard, marker in hand.
"There you are! What took you so long?" Cameron asked right away, walking over to them with her hands on her hips. "Tini's been here dying, and you were—"
"Tini?" House interrupted, a devilish grin on his face. "Is that seriously her name?"
"Yes," Cameron said huffily. "And she's nearly gone into labor twice more since I called—we have to figure out what's with her before the baby dies!"
"Sorry," House said as he set the McDonalds bag on the table. Unzipping his jacket, he nodded towards the bag. "Had to pick up dinner."
Chase already had his coat off and was hanging it up on the rack, and he held out a hand to take House's coat. "Fast food is so disgusting. I will never understand what you people find so appealing about it."
"Blondie got the apple dippers," House said, jerking his head in Chase's direction. He limped over to the table and grabbed a hamburger, and read the whiteboard as he unwrapped it. "So how many times has the runt tried to pop out?"
"Four," Cameron said, looking a little happier now that they were focusing on the case. "Her family insists that they only work in that little restaurant, and Foreman swept the place along with their home, and it was all clean. The father of the baby says that he doesn't know of any family conditions, but of course, he only knows of three of his relatives, so that wasn't completely—"
"Got it," House said, holding up a hand.
Cameron looked at him expectantly, but kept her mouth shut.
"What's her white count?" Chase asked, hoping that he wasn't about to get chewed out for interrupting. When he saw House shrug, he knew that he was clear and pulled out the little bag of apple slices he'd gotten.
"I thought we agreed that it wasn't an infection," Foreman said, speaking for the first time since Chase and House had come in. "An infection wouldn't last months, like this condition has."
"It could," Chase said, taking a seat at the table. "Does that mean that you didn't do a white count check?"
"We thought it wasn't an infection," Cameron said defensively. "Why would we?"
"I thought that it was an infection," Chase said with a pointed glare at House, who was chewing on a large bite of hamburger. "I say we run a blood smear, check her whites and test for malaria."
House finished chewing and swallowed, holding out his hand towards Cameron, indicating that he wanted the marker. "You can do that later, when we finish the differential." When he had the marker in hand, he set down his food and uncapped it, limping over to the whiteboard. "So what else could it be, besides an infection?"
"It could still be environmental," Chase said right away, earning him a dirty look from Cameron. He put up his hands defensively, and was about to say something in explanation, when House cut him off.
"You're right. Are we having problems with the husband because of the lack of English, or because he doesn't want to talk?" House asked, writing down environmental on the board.
"Maybe both," Foreman said. "He has a strong accent, and seems to have a problem with English-speaking doctors. Thinks we're discriminating against him or something."
"He's aware that he has two homosexuals treating her?" House asked curiously, cocking his head.
"House!" Chase said in annoyance, hating the way he used the label so crudely.
House shrugged. "It's true."
"Yeah, but you don't have to—"
"Anyways," Cameron interrupted loudly with a pointed look at Chase. "What are we going to do about it?"
Chase looked down, but then looked up to meet House's eyes.
"I'll talk to her," House said, breaking the brief moment of eye contact. "I can speak his language, I think." He stopped and looked as if he were deciding something, and then snapped back to attention. "So what else?"
There was silence in the room.
"Maybe... we missed something on the MRI?" Cameron finally said reluctantly.
House sighed and grudgingly wrote it on the board. "Okay. Cameron, Chase—lab. Foreman, you can go over the MRI films again." He turned around and was about to scribble something more on the whiteboard, when the door opened and Cuddy walked in. "Ah, Dr. Cuddy! How positively corking to see you this fine evening!"
Cuddy glared at him. "What are you doing here?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Gee, I don't know," House said, his eyes widening as he scratched his head in confusion. "Working, maybe?"
"You can't work, you're high!" Cuddy said exasperatedly. "Go home!"
House narrowed his eyes at her. "I'm not high. Ask Chase—the morphine wore off six hours ago."
Cameron's facial expression became rapidly disgusted as she heard his words, and Chase wasn't quite sure how he felt about that. Part of him agreed with her, but then, it was sort of his duty to defend House... right? He let the moment pass, too wrapped up in his confusion to make a decision. Then Chase suddenly realized that Cuddy was staring at him expectantly, and blushed.
Cuddy let her arms fall to her sides in frustration. "I want to talk to you."
"Oh—yeah. Sure," Chase said, remembering their conversation on the phone this morning. "Now?"
"Why not now?" House said loudly, before Cuddy could get anything out. "It's not like Chase is busy working or anything! You know what? You just take him for the rest of the night—not like I need him or anything."
"I'm glad that you feel that way," Cuddy said primly. "I won't feel guilty borrowing him." She nodded to Chase and then started walking over to the door.
Chase gave House an apologetic shrug as he followed. "I'll be back," he promised, and House stuck out his tongue.
Cuddy led him to her office, which was darkening with the evening sky, and she indicated that he should sit in the chair across from her desk. Chase sat, part of him dreading what she was going to say and part of him ready to fight out what he had to, to prove his point. Really, he was wishing that he could be back with House more than anything.
"Dr. Chase," Cuddy said, and for a moment, Chase felt as if he were back in primary school and sitting before the principal. "I hope that you're not too angry with me."
Chase would have loved dearly to say something about that, but he held his tongue and nodded instead.
"You realize that you—and House—have put me in a position that leaves me with almost no options," Cuddy said, folding her hands together on top of her desk and staring Chase straight in the eyes. "My first loyalty has to always be towards the hospital, and not its employees, which means that sometimes I have to realize that people are replaceable, and the hospital is not. It wasn't what I wanted to do, personally, but there was nothing I could do about it professionally. I'm sorry that it has to be like this."
Chase bit the inside of his cheek, reminding himself that it didn't matter. Nothing else mattered besides what House thought, and House didn't care. Cuddy didn't matter any more than the flowerpot on the windowsill.
"And also, Dr. Chase," Cuddy continued, "House is the kind of person that needs to be dealt with in extremes—I had to push this to get it through his thick skull that he couldn't start making out with you in the clinic."
"So it's politics," Chase said, trying to keep the coldness from his voice, but he couldn't quite manage it. "We've gotten in the way of your plan."
Cuddy gave him a wry smile. "I'm Dean of Medicine—it's a fancy way of saying Ass Kisser. The hard part of that is separating your personal beliefs from the beliefs that will get you places."
"So this isn't going to end?" Chase asked, working to maintain his polite tone. "For as long as we work here, we'll be unable to display anything just because of your games?"
Cuddy sighed. "It was your choice to do this—if it's worth it, then you'll live with it. There isn't much else I can tell you."
Again, Chase bit down on his cheek, feeling hot saliva rush into his mouth as his teeth tore through the tender lining. He waited and counted to three before he spoke. "So then what did you want to talk to me about, then?"
"I wanted you to know that, even though it might not seem like it, I am happy for you," Cuddy said, giving him a small smile that even Chase could see was sincere. It didn't make him feel any better about things, though.
"I don't understand how you could go against what you believe in," Chase said, trying to express why he was so frustrated. "How you could love a job that gives you power that you can't use. I don't understand how you could live like that... But I know that you can't understand me, so I guess that's sort of fair. I can live with that."
Cuddy said nothing and looked down at her hands as Chase stood up and walked out of her office, feeling strangely better now that he'd said that. He felt lighter, more resolved in his belief that things were finally looking up, and relieved that, at least temporarily, he had come to a truce with Cuddy. Maybe House had something there, about speaking your mind and damning the consequences.
Chase found House sitting in his office, iPod plugged in and blasting The Who, but stood in front of the glass door for a while, just watching him. House had put him through hell the last few days, and yet, here he was again. He'd promised himself that House would have one more chance to do things right, but he knew in his heart that it was wasted, because even House did this again, he'd still return.
Exhaling, he pulled open the door and stepped inside.
"I was wondering how long you were going to stand there, staring at my sexy body," House commented as he turned down the volume of his speakers. "I've got paper towels so you can clean up your drool instead of using your sleeve."
Chase rolled his eyes. "Careful with that ego, House. You might find it hard to fit through the door with a head like that."
"I've managed it so far," House said, leaning back in his chair and stretching languidly. "What did Cuddy want?"
"Nothing important," Chase said, crossing the room and leaning against the bookcase that was perpendicular to House's desk. "Just wanted to explain to me how she has two faces and has to kiss conservative ass all day long."
"Ah," House said, yawning hugely. He grabbed his cane and stood up, and from the way he moved, Chase could practically hear his bones creaking and groaning from the movements.
"I was thinking" Chase said hesitantly, and House immediately became fixated on him. He swallowed and continued. "I could work NICU tonight, and then tomorrow we could... I dunno, do something. Fun."
"Or," House said, grabbing a letter from his desk, "You could not work NICU and we could go home and do something fun. Like start season five of X-Files" He handed Chase the piece of paper without a word of explanation.
Chase frowned. "You know that I can't..." His words died as he saw what was on the slip of paper.
Mos left: 0 PAID OFF
"You... but..." He was speechless as he realized what House had done. "I—the..."
"It's not charity," House said readily. "It's an apology."
Chase let the paper fall to the ground, and it fluttered to the floor soundlessly. "You didn't have to do that," he said slowly, his mind still reeling at the idea that he would never have to work overtime again. "I was working, I could have paid it off..."
"And make me spend all those long nights alone?" House said, cracking a grin. "You overestimate my powers of self-control."
Feeling slightly light-headed, Chase stood there while a faint smile pushed its way onto his face. He blinked several times, trying to wrap his mind around the idea. Part of him was screaming, almost accusingly, that he shouldn't accepting this. He was independent and didn't need House's pity—but then he came to the realization that he wasn't independent. House made up quite a few of the beams that he supported himself on.
"Or you could consider it my contribution to the—" House stopped speaking as the door opened, and Chase spun around to see Cameron standing there with a sheet of paper in one hand.
"Oh," she said, her eyes falling on Chase, and he could see her almost take a step backwards. "I just wanted to say that Chase was right; it was malaria. We started her on chloroquine, and mefloquine just to be safe."
House nodded, and Cameron hurried to shut the door and left quickly. He turned to face a wickedly-grinning Chase.
"I was right," Chase said triumphantly, feeling like a light bulb for all the glee that was radiating off of him. "Which means that you were wrong."
"Can we go back to the part about how I just saved your ass from another month of overtime?" House asked hopefully. "I think that I was enjoying that more."
"Sure," Chase said, his smile softening. "Thank you."
Gently, he pulled House towards him and wrapped his arms around his body, only able to comfortably rest his head against House's chest due to the height difference. He felt House slowly hug him back, and Chase realized that hugging hadn't really been something that they'd done... but it felt right. Comfortable. And for the first time in many, many months he felt...
Free.