`Chase?' House called. He had set Chase down on his couch hours before with a nod towards the cable and the fridge, but it was occurring to him that he hadn't exactly told him to stay there.

`Yeah?' But then Chase was used to obeying the implicit instructions House gave. He was in the kitchen, padding around sock-less.

`Barefoot and in the kitchen? If you're pregnant, you may be beyond even my considerable expertise.'

He blushed, `I was getting something to eat. Do you want anything?'

`You cooked me dinner?'

The incredulity in his voice forced Chase into defensiveness. `I cooked for me. There's enough for you if you want. If you don't.. .'

`Why would I turn down free food?'

Chase brought him a plate of pasta, setting it carefully on the table. They ate in near silence, only breaking it to pass the salt.

When they had finished, Chase carried the plates to the sink to wash. House wondered whether James had been entirely wrong in his warnings. He had been repeating them all day, so clearly he thought they were warranted. But Chase was a grown man, however stupidly childlike he looked wandering around barefoot and bruised.

`Here,' he growled, tossing Chase a set of keys when the washing up was finished. `All sorted. The nasty man won't be able to get in now.'

He was met with a hesitant look. `Thanks for sorting it out. I should probably go then...'

Not sure whether he was relenting to the almost-plea, or succumbing to his own need to make sure that Chase was spending the night somewhere safe, he answered, `It's ten o'clock - I'm not driving you home tonight. I have a perfectly good couch you can sleep on.'

Chase nodded, a hint of gratefulness flickering in his eyes.

He limped out to explain to Chase exactly why waking your boss up at three a.m. was a bad idea.

Chase was already looking at the doorway when House appeared in it. `Sorry,' he murmured.

`The question is - will "sorry" turn back time so I don't get woken up by house-guests in the middle of the night, irreparably damaging my sleep-patterns?' he responded contemplatively.

Still wrapped in the blanket, Chase got up and turned the television off. `Sorry,' he repeated.

`Tell that to the sleep-patterns,' he said mournfully. `Go make yourself hot milk or whatever it is that good British children drink to make themselves sleepy. I have to work tomorrow - no time to sit here reading you bedtime stories.'

Chase scoffed quietly at that, but walked to the kitchen. `Want anything?'

`Sleep. No clinic hours and no patients tomorrow.' He pondered, `And a hooker named Sally.'

A slight smile. `From the kitchen.'

`Sally isn't in the kitchen in some kind of French maid ensemble, is she?'

Chase shook his head, although it wasn't clear whether it was an answer to the question or a response to House's French maid fantasy being called Sally.

When Chase came back he settled into the couch with a sigh, inhaling the steam emanating from the mug.

`You can go,' he offered to House.

`As it is my house, I'm aware of that, yes. Where did you get cocoa from?'

`Kitchen?'

He shook his head. `Now, Robert, only bad boys lie.'

`I went to the shop while you were at work. I forgot to bring shaving cream.'

`And so naturally you stocked up on cocoa power.'

`You didn't tell me not to leave.'

`I'm not asking why you left, I'm asking why you left to buy cocoa powder.'

`I didn't leave to buy cocoa powder. I just saw it while I was there and picked it up. I don't know why I'm explaining this - it's my money and...'

`No marshmallows?'

He blushed, admitting, `I forgot.'

`So you remember cocoa, but marshmallows are beyond you?'

`Why are you...?'

House interrupted him, `When was the last time you slept?'

`Last night?'

`Well that's a lie, because you spent last night in a closet!'

`The night before, then,' he responded, shrugging.

`For a whole night.'

`What are you...?'

`The doors are locked, Chase. The bogey-men are all outside. Lie down and go to sleep.'

Chase just blinked at him.

House sighed, and poked the television back on with the end of his cane. He reached for the remote and channel-hopped to a badly dubbed kung-fu movie. Daring Chase to comment, he made no move to go back to his room.

Chase just pulled the blankets tighter around himself, and settled down, sipping from the hot cocoa periodically.

Inching close enough to snag the mug as it was dropped was tricky, but House managed it. He shoved Chase lightly so he fell, still asleep, onto the end of the sofa. When House went back to bed, ten minutes later, he left the lamp on.

Chapter 5

`Chase! Leaving now!'

`Coming,' he called from the bathroom.

`I might be more inclined to believe that if you hadn't said the same thing half an hour ago. You can blow-dry your hair at your own house.'

Chase opened the door. `Done.' He was wearing his lab coat, and had his hair brushed down in front of the gash on his forehead.

`A little dressed up for recuperating in the apartment, aren't you? And the whole doctor role-play thing's only fun if you have company,' House said.

`I'm going to work.'

`Okay.' Chase blinked in surprise at the easy acquiescence. House went on, `But if you have a breakdown in the office we're all just going to work around your prone body. I don't offer sympathy and cosseting to people who assert that they're fine.'

`You don't offer sympathy to people who aren't asserting they're fine either. So I wasn't exactly expecting any.'

`...good.'

But Chase seemed fine. Still a little quiet, but he had been quieter since somewhere between Vogler and his father's death, so as far as House knew, it was nothing to do with Tom. He was more awake than he had been in weeks, and participating in the white-board with something approaching his usual enthusiasm.

When he seemed to drift off, House called him back sharply, `Chase!'

`Hmmm?'

`Is the answer to the case hidden in the pencil you're so ardently devouring? Or am I simply no longer worthy of your attention?'

He received a glower for his troubles, and Chase began to rhyme off a string of suggestions, all related to their discussion of the last few minutes. Typical - no gratitude.

`Get out of the way!' House said, pushing past the nurses. He elbowed Chase out of the way. `You're no use to me in here. Go!' He took the tube from Chase's hands, and fed it slowly into the airway.

House left the patient's room after reluctantly reassuring the husband that his wife was breathing fine now, and they were doing all they could. It wasn't until he had nearly reached his office that he remembered Chase's expression when he had been ordered out. Chase had been fine for weeks now, since House had driven him to the hospital the morning after he had forcibly ended Chase's relationship with Tom. The last time he had seen Chase look like that had been...

He found Chase in the office.

Chase looked up at him, no hint of the desperation of half an hour ago. `Sorry,' he said. `I just couldn't find the airway.'

`Luckily, I could,' House answered, none of his relief showing. `Patients have this stupid desire to keep breathing.'

`Did Chase seem okay to you?' Cameron was asking Foreman.

`I'm gonna take a wild leap and assume you think he isn't,' he answered.

`I'm worried about him.'

`You worry about everyone.'

`You don't think he's been strange?'

`Chase is always strange. It's an Australian thing.'

`He's really fidgety. He's not fighting back when you shout him down. Plus, he's he fell down the stairs in his apartment and got this huge bruise. And he isn't normally clumsy.'

`You've seen his leg?' Foreman asked, grinning. When Cameron glared, he looked serious. `He's been jumpier than usual.'

`So,' Cameron said, `agitation, clumsiness, paranoia... those are all psychological symptoms.'

`You think he needs a shrink?'

`All I mean is, it's not just a bad mood, or distraction - there's something wrong.'

House made his presence known. `Where is he?'

`Chase?' Cameron asked. `He went home. It's pretty late.'

`He was going straight home?'

`That's what he said. Why do you need to know?'

He was already dialling Chase's home number. It went to the answering machine, and after the beep House snapped, `Chase? If you don't call me back in five minutes I'm coming over there.'

`What?' Foreman asked.

House didn't say a word. They sat in silence, House looking at his watch. When five minutes had passed he got up and walked to the door. `Go home,' he threw over his shoulder.

When House got back into the car, he wasn't exactly sure where he was going, but he knew the direction. In one of the town's less pleasant areas, he found what he was looking for.

The bar was smoky and loud, but Chase's blond hair was fairly distinctive. Especially leaning in like that, to a man who was not the one House had feared, but from the look he gave Chase, might well be so close as to make no difference.

As he walked over, he found himself wondering, yet again: What am I going to do with you. This time there was no answer.

Chapter 6

He grabbed Chase's wrist tightly, dragging the younger man off the stool. `So sorry,' he said to the hulking man Chase was talking to, `I'm his doctor, and we need him back in quarantine.' Whatever the man-mountain had been going to say, he stopped when he heard that.

Tossing a few bills on the bar, House pulled Chase, who was still not speaking, out and into his car. When they were safely on the road, and Chase couldn't leave unless he decided to play stunt-man out of the Corvette, House asked, `What the hell is wrong with you?' He wasn't shaking, because he wasn't a teenage girl, but he gripped the wheel tightly. `Just how much of a moron are you?'

`It's none of your...'

`Business. Heard this song, the original was better. What is going on in that pretty head of yours, Robert? My big bad boss lost me one violent psychopathic boyfriend, so it's probably time to go and find a new one?'

`He was nice.'

`No, he wasn't. Or did you not notice what kind of establishment you were frequenting there? Plus there was the way he was looking at you, like Christmas had come early.'

`There's a difference between...'

`Yes, there is, but I'm not convinced you actually know what it is.' Genuinely curious he asked, `What do you get from it?'

`From what?'

`From letting someone beat you into a pulp, Chase. What did you think I meant?'

`I...'

`Because, you see, I understand what you get from me. I'm the Daddy-replacement. An improvement in every way of course, but a replacement nonetheless. I'm where you go for medical-genius, pats on the head, and, according to Wilson, emotional abuse. But I cannot quite fathom what you get from being used a punching bag.'

`What does anyone get from it?'

`Usually? They're stuck, or compulsive fixers, or so starved for attention that a slap's as good as a kiss.'

`So pick one,' Chase answered, smiling with something that was neither warmth nor humour. `You're the diagnostician.'

`So are you.'

`I'm an intensivist.'

`No, Chase, you're a diagnostician. So if the intensivist thing was an attempt to make Pops mad, you're going to have to abandon it. I'm all geared up to train you into a mini-me.' He would have cackled to emphasise the point, but they were getting off track. `So you tell me why you think it is. You did a psych rotation at some point, I'm sure.'

`You want me to tell you that my Dad leaving gave me abandonment issues and left me with no male role-model to create my identity from? That having to take care of an alcoholic mother made me a control-freak? That I had to grow up too fast and now I'll take affection wherever I can get it?'

`Well now I know what you think isn't wrong with you. That's a start.'

`Everybody lies?'

`Good boy.'

Chase smiled at that despite himself, and then looked around in alarm. `Where are we?'

`Forgotten so soon?'

`I thought you were taking me home?'

`After that little display? You'll be lucky if you're ever let out to play again.'

`You're... what, kidnapping me?'

`I'm putting you somewhere safe until I can figure out what to do with you.'

And once again, here he was, sitting on his sofa with Chase, the younger man curled into a tight ball.

`You're not a replacement for my Dad,' Chase said, apropos of nothing.

`Are you sure? Because I was so looking forward to our estrangement.' House wondered whether that was going too far. On the plus side, he hadn't mentioned Rowan's untimely death, so he considered himself to be on the side of the angels right now.

`You're not,' Chase repeated. `If I was looking for that, I'd go to Wilson before you.'

`Robert, I'm hurt.'

`Everyone knows he's the nice one. If I wanted someone to tell me I was doing alright, pat me on the head and give me hugs, he's the better choice. You're...'

`Special,' House answered smugly.

Chase sighed and rubbed his face in exhaustion. `Sure, whatever.'

`What do you get from them?' House asked again.

`Why won't you leave this alone?'

`I had.'

`So this is what I deserve?'

`Interesting choice of words there.'

Chase groaned. `Clearly you're the one still thinking about their psyche rotation.'

`What can I say, you intrigue me. And since I can't throw you in with Rowan and watch the explosion in real-time anymore, I'll have to go with the boring option. What's up?'

`Why should I tell you?' Chase asked coolly.

`Because right now I'm the only person in your life who cares enough to ask.'

He leaned back, just a little, not because he was afraid, but because if Chase actually used that raised hand to hit him, there would be no hope of ending this conversation well. But Chase didn't make a fist, or swipe his palm across House's face. He curled his fingers around House's shoulder, and pulled him back, closer than before. The kiss was clumsy and hard, in contrast to Chase's feather-light grip. For a moment, he didn't move. When he did, opening his mouth to Chase, tentatively using his tongue, Chase stopped pushing. Letting House take control. Making House take control.

The next positive move Chase made was standing up, pulling House with him, towards the bedroom.

`Chase,' House said. `Bad idea.'

`You asked.'

He couldn't really argue with that. It was just that he hadn't expected the answer to his question to be a practical demonstration.

If he had ever imagined sex with Chase, not something he was willing to concede definitively, even in his head, it had not been like this. Pinning Chase, lying half on top of him, using his one good leg to hold himself up. Driving into him, harder than he should be, because of Chase's insistent thrusts upwards. The blond head was tilted back, eyes shut tightly. The cry he gave could either be pleasure or pain and House was reminded of exactly why he thought this was a bad idea.

`Stop,' House instructed harshly.

Chase's protesting cry was inarticulate at best.

`Chase, stop.'

He did, petulantly rolling away, shaking House from his precarious balance. House swore harshly, grimacing in pain.

Chase's eyes were wide with horror as he stammered apologies.

He must be more of a bastard than he thought, because this - Chase's mingled apology and adoration as he crawled down the bed - this - warm mouth around his cock in penance for a sin major or minor - this was closer to what he imagined sex with Chase would be like.

So, in the morning, he wasn't sure whether it was for Chase's benefit or his own that the first words out of his mouth were: `This can't happen again.'

Chase nodded, as if this was no more than he had expected.

`Not that it wasn't a fun time for all involved, but you need help, Chase, and I'm not it.'

`And there's no particular reason this revelation didn't occur before the blow-job?'

`Chase.'

He didn't respond, pulling on jeans and wounded dignity. But his voice was lost and despairing, and utterly, utterly resigned when he turned at the door to deliver his goodbye. `Why can you never just leave me alone?'

FIN for this part. One part to go.