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Grace
by Ishafel
Grace
He gets in the car and his mother is in the seat next to him, and his father is in the back (his mother who died when he was sixteen, his father who died when he was twenty-six) and he doesn't scream. He's reasonably certain they aren't really there: that they're a product of exhaustion, stress, and the drugs he did in college. He's seen them before, after all, though never together (they weren't together for most of his childhood.) He sees his mother at the bottom of the glass every time he finishes a drink. He sees his father in the mirror and wishes he were becoming someone else.
"You didn't save me, Dr. Chase," his mother says. Her face is monstrous, as it was before she died, bloated, red, framed by matted blond hair. (He prefers to remember her when she was beautiful, or not at all.)
"At least he tried to save you." In the rearview mirror, nothing shows but the yellow gleam of his father's eyes, but Chase imagines a grinning skull floating over his shoulder. "He didn't care enough about me to try."
This is unfair, but not untrue. Chase doesn't respond. He never once won an argument with either of them when they were alive. He pushes his car door open and winces as it hits the Mercedes on his left.
"That will leave a mark," his father says, sounding pleased. He always liked to see Chase fuck up. Chase admires the dent he's left in the shiny silver paint for a moment before he pulls his door shut and backs carefully out. He's lucky he doesn't have an assigned parking space. They might suspect him but they'll never know.
"Make a left at the light," his mother tells him, and Chase muscles the Rover out of the right turn only lane. He won't ask where he's going. That would be acknowledging what's happening-and besides, he doesn't really want to know. It must be his imagination that the car smells faintly of gin. He's never driven with his parents in the car before; his mother was dead by the time he got his license and his father was gone. The chaplain at school taught him to drive and took him for his test. (He wishes, for a moment, he was back there, back then: Australia, sunny and green, seminary straight ahead and not another missed turn. He's always hated failing.)
The house they direct him toward is small and tidy, little bikes in the driveway, wreath on the door. There's no name on the mailbox but he knows whose house it was. She was his only real mistake, and his only act of kindness; of course he remembers. "Do you pray for her?" his father asks.
Chase shakes his head. "I don't pray for any of them," he says, forgetting that he wasn't going to answer. "I don't even pray for myself." And then he's fumbling with the door handle again, vomiting in the street outside Kayla's house. It was House's fault-House's and his father's, and his own for allowing himself to be blindsided. His mother's hands are cool on his back (something else to not think about.)
He wipes his mouth on his sleeve and presses his face against the cool leather of the steering wheel. It's nearly midnight and he's due back at the hospital at eight. "Why are you doing this to me?" he asks.
"Because we can," his father says. Chase turns the key in the ignition and heads for home. By the time he gets there he's alone. He remembers now why he prefers it.
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of Fox Television, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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