A/N: This takes place in season 7 and is Alternate Universe after Recession Proof, which means the House/Cuddy breakup in Bombshells never happened, Masters is still around, and 13 has not yet returned.
Ghosts of the Past: A Chase-centric fanfiction
Chapter 1: An Unexpected Patient
Dr. Robert Chase sat at the glass table in the Diagnostics conference room, a fresh mug of coffee in front of him as he filled out some of the backlogged discharge summaries House had long neglected. He had originally been planning to go and grab dinner with two of his friends from the surgical staff, William and Mark, but both had been called in for an emergency surgery, so here he sat, a mountain of paperwork in front of him. He wasn't entirely sure what had possessed him to take on said paperwork, but it served as a distraction from his life, a distraction from the fact that they'd lost their last patient who had left his poor wife as a widowed single mother. He remembered Masters' horrors stricken face and felt a pang of sympathy for the young med student. He had just completed the third summary when he heard a familiar gait coming down the hall, the glass door swinging open a moment later.
"What are you doing here?" Chase asked. "Shouldn't you be with Cuddy? Or Wilson?"
"Shouldn't you be charming that hot new nurse on our floor to sleep with you?" House countered, sitting down at the head of the table.
"I'm putting that to rest for a while," Chase admitted, knowing it was easier just to tell House the truth. "I got tired of it. And it isn't in my nature, really. Just a distraction."
House smirked. "I see Masters has had an effect on you. Adorable."
"Cut the crap House. I'm trying to work. Seriously, why are you here?"
"So you never told me," House deflected, pulling his glasses from his pocket and perusing the file he'd brought in. "What did everyone on the surgical staff think when you transferred back here last year?"
Chase sighed, but was ever amused at House's persistence. "They think I'm a masochist," he answered, giving into the fact that trying to continue his work was pointless now. "But they don't really question me about it since the fistfight."
"Ah yes," House grinned. "My pissing contest with Dave Thomas over you. I'd almost forgotten. Wish I'd gotten that on videotape."
Chase felt a half-smile creep onto his face. "Was that a backhanded compliment?"
"No," House said, averting his eyes. "Who do you take me for?"
"Are you ever going to tell me why you're here?" Chase asked again, a cough marring his words. He could feel the oncoming of a cold from the ever present tickle in this throat during the past two days.
"New patient," House said, keeping a tight grip on the file and piquing Chase's curiosity. "I was going to call you in, but here you are."
"Just me?" Chase asked, raising one eyebrow in disbelief. "What about everybody else?"
"Thought you might like to see this patient first," House replied, dangling the file from his fingertips.
Chase seized the file, his reflexes quicker than House's, mouth dropping open in shock when he read the name on the file: Dr. Melinda Theresa Chase.
"My stepmother!" Chase exclaimed. "What…we…" he stuttered on, not quite able to process.
"She was at a medical conference in New York and came down with some odd symptoms that three doctors haven't been able to figure out in as many days," House said, a slightly evil grin overtaking his features. "She asked to be transferred here."
"It takes a whole lot more than just strange symptoms to get you to take a case," Chase argued. "It takes really bizarre symptoms. A lot of them."
"You don't want to treat your own stepmother?" House questioned, eyebrows shooting up towards his hairline.
"It's not…" Chase started, his reflexes to keep his life as private as possible flexing themselves once again; he was tired of his personal business somehow being whispered about in the corridors. He'd had enough of that after Cameron had left. "We shouldn't treat people we know. It's not ethical."
"Right," House countered, sarcasm in his tone. "Because we've never done that before. And 'we' don't know her. You do. And I'm sure you can keep yourself together. Now scamper and go get a history. She wants to see you."
A few minutes later Chase walked down the hallway, file in hand, cursing his boss under his breath. It wasn't that he didn't like his stepmother…he actually was fond of her and had known her since he was young boy and she first started working at Melbourne General with his father. To Rowan's credit, he hadn't pulled a cliché and married someone twenty years younger than him after he'd left Isabelle and Robert; Melinda was just two years younger and had been a colleague of Rowan's for years. She'd often tried to serve as a peacemaker between father and son after she'd married Rowan, and he'd appreciated her kind, if mostly futile efforts. Still, this whole situation was unsettling to Chase. He hadn't seen Melinda in two years, not since his wedding to Cameron, and it was odd having his two lives colliding in such a way. He sighed, steeling himself and plastering a confident smile on his face before sliding open the glass door.
"Melinda?" he asked, getting her attention. Her wavy, always slightly frazzled hair was streaked with more gray than he remembered, and it struck him heavily in that moment how starkly she contrasted with his mother's looks; Isabelle had had long, golden blonde hair and eyes that looked just like Chase's, while Melinda had dark brown hair and espresso colored eyes.
"Robert," she greeted him, a smile gracing her features. "Sorry to be meeting you like this, dear. You've cut your hair."
"A while back, yeah," he said, running a hand over his shorter locks.
"After the divorce?" she prodded, voice a tad softer.
Chase was startled that she mentioned it out loud, but held back his surprise. "Shortly before it was finalized," he responded, clearing his throat. "So I see you're having an odd array of symptoms," he flipped through the file again. "Slight tachycardia, low blood pressure, headaches, nausea…started out with flu like symptoms, but whatever it is has obviously progressed so we can rule that out. We'll probably test first for infections or toxins, but House sent me in here to get a history just in case."
Melinda gazed at him for a moment, an unreadable expression on her sickly pale face, and Chase was suddenly reminded of her phone call to the hospital when she'd told him Rowan had died, how her tone had been melancholy, heartwrenching. He had been unable to tell if she'd known of his father's decision not tell him he was dying or if indeed she'd had no idea of his deception toward his own son; she had maintained an odd neutrality when he'd sounded so shocked.
"That makes sense," she said, jolting him from his thoughts. "I've had my staff at Melbourne General Diagnostics read some of the articles that have come through your department, told them about some of the cases of yours I've heard about. It sets a standard."
Chase smiled at her, twiddling his pen in his fingers. "We certainly get some weird cases," he responded.
She nodded, placing a hand on her head. "We'd better get this history down before this starts up again."
"Here," he said, getting up and retrieving a cup of water and wetting a small washcloth in the bathroom with warm water. He sat back down, concerned. "We'll make this quick, I promise."
Twenty or so minutes later he slid the door closed, bidding her goodnight and making sure to order pain medication for her headaches, which were growing worse. He walked back toward Diagnostics, feeling strangely sore. He knew he should eat something as he knew he was in for a long night at the hospital but oddly found he wasn't hungry, so once he was back in the conference room he made for coffee pot instead, finding it already half full and fairly fresh, a post it note in House's scrawl stuck to the front.
'Have fun pulling an all-nighter! Feel free to page Foreman at 5 a.m. if you get bored.'
Chase shook his head, chuckling a little. He sat down at the computer with his coffee, preparing to type out his medical history notes and print off copies for the rest of the team, as his handwriting, like any doctor's, was often difficult to read. He sipped his coffee, hardly able to believe this was happening, hardly able to believe that his completely normal day has turned a total 180 without warning, although after some of the things that had happened in his life he supposed he shouldn't have been surprised. Seeing Melinda again made him ache inside for Australia in a way he hadn't for quite some time; he ached for the beaches, for the warmth, for the friends he'd left behind. He'd gone to Australia on his honeymoon with Cameron, and then again the Christmas after she'd left him to spend the holiday with his best friend Andrew and his family, simply because he couldn't bear to spend it alone. Sometimes he wondered if maybe he should move back, but knew that would open up the Pandora's box of the past he'd tried so hard to escape from when he came to America. He would always love his home…but going back there permanently didn't seem like the right thing.
He typed away, his mind drifting back to his stepmother's case. He'd been a bit surprised when she hadn't offered a potential diagnosis of her own; she'd started running her own diagnostics department when he was just starting medical school himself, and it had been that which first sparked his interest in the field. The more he studied the history he'd taken, the more concerned he became that her heart was in trouble. He'd just reached for the phone in order to schedule an echocardiogram when his cell phone vibrated, signaling a new e-mail. Since it was past midnight he was uncertain as to who it could be, and he dropped his phone in surprise when his eyes landed on the sender's name: it was from Cameron. He opened the message with slightly shaking hands, totally bewildered. The only contact he'd had with Cameron since her cryptic appearance and their passionate goodbye during the hospital lockdown was a piece of mail from his lawyer telling him that the divorce was finalized, and that didn't really count for anything. His eyes flitted over the message, hardly able to focus.
Robert,
I'm not entirely sure if I should be writing this e-mail, but I thought…I thought I'd just say hello. Remember all that time ago when I said that even if things didn't work out between us, that even if we ended up on other sides of the world, that I'd still be there if you really needed me? That's still true. I just wanted you to know that, even if I'm not really sure why.
I've been working as an attending in the Immunology department at St. Francis Hospital in Chicago for the past six months, and I'm enjoying it. They have a really great community outreach program here that I've gotten involved in. I've been throwing myself into my work, which I imagine you wouldn't find surprising.
Anyway, write back if you like and let me know what's going on with you.
Sincerely,
~ Allison
Chase placed his phone on the desk and closed the message, unable to think of a satisfactory answer at the moment, unsure if he even wanted to answer. Part of him appreciated her attempt at what he supposed was friendship, but part of him just wasn't ready to compose a reply; some days he felt like he had finally moved on from her, but other days it was painfully clear that he had done no such thing. He went back to Melinda's file, trying to push the e-mail from his mind, the words of Elvis Costello's Allison playing inside his head.
He had planned on waiting for the team to come in at 8, but was forced to page them all, House included, at 6 a.m. when Melinda had another bout of severe tachycardia and he'd had to shock her back into rhythm. The team sat around the table examining the file and the white board, contemplating the symptoms Chase had taken the liberty of writing up on the white board, causing House to complain about people touching his markers.
"I'm thinking it's the heart," Foreman said, looking up at the rest of them. "We should wait to see what the echo tells us. Maybe get an MRI since there's headaches involved, in case it's something neurological." He glanced over at Chase, who was glaring at the symptoms on the whiteboard, as though he could will a correct diagnoses to come to them out of sheer mind power. "I know I'll just get shot down," he continued, "But should you really be working this case Chase? She is your stepmother."
"Like we haven't treated people we've known before," House scoffed, leaning against the counter and sipping his coffee in the most surly manner possible. "We're keeping the case and Chase is also staying on it."
"Because you think it's an interesting case or because you think it's interesting to have Chase treating his stepmother?" Taub chimed in, raising one eyebrow.
"That's for me to know and you to wonder," House evaded.
"It started out with flu symptoms," Masters stated, obviously deciding to focus on the case. "So it could be an infection. We should run cultures and start broad spectrum antibiotics."
"It could be a toxin," Chase said, turning back to face the rest of the team. "Looks a little bit like carbon monoxide poisoning."
"Could be drugs," House added.
"She doesn't do drugs," Chase said, turning to face his boss. "Never has."
"Excuse me," House cut in. "But how often do you see her?"
Recognizing that he'd given into House's attempt at getting a rise out of him, he avoided arguing further. "The point is, we should check her hotel room."
"Manhattan is over an hour from here not counting traffic," House said, leaning heavily on his cane. "Go run the echo, the MRI and the tox screen for drugs, then you can go check her hotel room if nothing turns up. In the meantime help Masters with the MRI and the Echo. Bert and Ernie over here can draw blood for the cultures and the tox screen." He grinned, and Chase knew it could only be because he was up to something. "And I'll start the antibiotics myself."
"You're going to talk to a patient before they're at death's door?" Master's questioned, her mouth hanging open in shock.
"She's Chase's stepmother. I'm curious," House said, following a sympathetic looking Foreman and Taub out the door.
Chase drummed his fingers on the table for a few moments, an irritation he hadn't felt toward House in a long time coming forth. He'd admit to an affection and an immense respect for his boss and mentor, but most of the time the man was incorrigible. He coughed again and rubbed his throat, noting that he should probably take another dose of Theraflu in a couple of hours.
"Are you sick?" Masters asked, looking concerned.
"Probably just a little cold," Chase said, giving her a smile. She always looked a bit like a lost puppy every time House did something new that stepped over the lines of normality. He still found it amusing, but he'd enjoyed taking her under his wing. "Come on, let's go set up the MRI and get Melinda for the Echo. Hopefully House won't have time to ask too many embarrassing questions."
A/N: A bit of an odd ending, I know, but I'm never great at ending introductory chapters. I'm sorry if this starts off a bit slow, but I promise it will pick up in the next chapter. I hope you enjoyed it! On a random note, did anybody else enjoy the wonderful amount of Chase screen time in last week's episode? I know I did!