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  The Source of Our Power 
 by SojournersSecret  

 Disclaimer: I don't own the characters themselves nor some of the
background story material. The characters of the show "House" belong to
all affiliates of Heel & Toe Films, Bad Hat Harry Productions, and Shorez
Productions with regards to David Shore. This Fic takes place sometime
right after "One Day, One Room" of the current Third Season, so mention of
Eve's rape and abortion are mentioned, however is not the central theme of
the story. Drama/Angst category; Rated M for dark themes 

"Eternity! Eternity! Oh, that this word could be emblazoned across the
streets of Sydney!" ---the sermon which inspired Arthur Stace, otherwise
known as Sydney Australia's beloved hobo, "Mr. Eternity" to begin his
plight

"Whenever life gets you down Mrs. Brown / and things seem hard or tough /
and people are stupid, obnoxious or daft / and you feel that you've had
quite enough! / just remember that your standing on a planet that's
evolving / revolving at nine-hundred miles an hour / its orbiting at
ninety miles a second / so its reckoned / a sun that is the source of all
our power / the sun and you and me / and all the stars that we can see /
are moving at a million miles a day / in an outer spiral arm at
forty-thousand miles an hour / of the galaxy we call the Milky Way"-Man in
Pink, "Monty Python: The Meaning of Life"

Dr. Robert Chase couldn't contain his smile as he practically waltzed an
imaginary Matilda down the Princeton-Plainsboro hallways, thinking about
the day, and how things sometimes took a turn for the better when you
least expected it. House had actually taken the time to a) seek him out b)
ask his opinion, and he was on Cloud 9. Even if it was House and House
would never admit he needed anyone's assistance even if he was in
desperate need, Chase was simply glad to have been needed. 

It had been a tough day, too---though he had tried to maintain his
professional air, go on about the business of a typical day, and not let
on that he was having any kind of personal issue of any kind. Wilson had
known what the day had meant, and he had kindly sought Chase out and
suggested Chase ask Cuddy for the day off, since House was stuck with
Clinic Duty anyway and the only patient that seemed to be taking up his
time otherwise was a rape victim who didn't seem to want any doctor,
curiously, besides Doctor Gregory House. 

Even the psychiatrist that House had placed her with had lead to the
terribly traumatized patient to attempt suicide. Chase hadn't known there
could be such forms of neediness. He had been startled by House's
curiosity in how to handle the case---he'd figured he'd just wing it like
usual and send the girl on her way. But House, being House, had wanted to
solve some kind of puzzle as to how to answer the girl's questions. He
couldn't let a puzzle go, even when it involved a girl who idolized the
exact wrong person at the worst time. Chase could understand guilt and
sin, but he didn't understand how sin involved rape unless you were the
rapist.

His advice to House: "Keep her asleep," he'd said, because he couldn't
think of anything else, even though he knew, deep down, it was best not to
run from your problems. "Thanks," House had said snidely, although Chase
could sense somehow that he'd appreciated the attempt. "You've all been a
bighelp." 

"There's no right answer, because there's no wrong answer," he'd said
then, feeling ever confident by the second as House seemed to need
something more. 

However, House had come to his own conclusion. "No," House had replied,
with the signature glaze coming over his face as he turned his thoughts
deeply inward, "We just don't know what the right answer is." 

Chase remembered then something Wilson had said, a few months before, and
it echoed in his mind even now as he took his afternoon stroll past the
ICU, not forgetting to peek into some of his own recent patient's rooms,
and giving them a nod of acknowledgement to let them know he had not
forgotten. He had just gotten packed a wallop by House and was hot under
the collar as he'd practically stabbed his PP. 

"I was right," he'd muttered, "I was right and I told him and it didn't
matter." Wilson, noticing how much House had gotten his dander up, had
given some gleaming advice: "You solved one, Chase. That better be enough
for you..." 

House needed to be right. Chase knew he wouldn't settle for anything less.
Anything less was purgatory for Chase and his teammates, and he knew that
House wouldn't settle for anything less than what he thought. If it aided
House's own personal beliefs would only House accept it, that much Chase
knew as far as House's personal ethics. 

Chase wondered what House had said to the rape victim. An addict
counseling a rape victim didn't seem sound in Chase's mind (and he had
said as much in the conference room), but House had persisted, even as
he'd argued that Cameron wanting House to be good for this girl was a
romantic notion, period. He knew Cameron partly idolized House as well and
that they needed to keep reality in check. As much as it seemed this girl
thought she needed House (for whatever reason) House was not going to be
her salvation. 

His thoughts lead him down a particularly foreign corner and he was
surprised to see it lead straight to the Hospital's Chapel. He hesitated
on the periphery, considering whether he should go in. If he took the
first step in, he would be acknowledging to himself that he needed to
reflect more than he was already, and as it was this had been an
all-around draining day. Even if it hadn't involved an unusual patient, it
had still left him knackered to the point of wishing he could slip into
one of the sleep rooms and take the quickest kip he could manage before
heading for the terribly lonely drive home-which would, in turn, leave him
only alone with an 'Aussie salute' to the idiot box and further brooding
to be done.

In the end, the Chapel seemed the best place to keep himself from
encountering either one of his colleagues, and anyone knew that a Chapel
was a place of safe seclusion. Committing to enter involved telling his
heart that this had nothing to do with his past as a seminary student or
his fallout from the Christian church of his boyhood back in Sydney. 

He slipped in and nearly tripped into the first pew at the sight of House,
already lounging in one of the center pews with his feet on the back of
the pew in front of him, earpieces of his iPod stuck in both ears and his
PSP in hand. A swell of unwanted emotion hit Chase at once, barreling past
his consciousness at near-breakneck speed but managing nevertheless to
make him almost shudder: shock at the sight of House in the Chapel at all,
and, then, an almost overwhelming surge of anger at his boss for (however
unknowingly) stealing his sanctuary of choice while treating the chapel
like a doctor's lounge. House may as well be at home, he looked as though
he came there every day, with how relaxed he looked.

Restraining himself to speak first, Chase brushed past House and sat
quickly in the very first pew, facing front and knowing it was an empty
hope to not have House notice he was there. 

Even so he was startled at how quick House appeared by his side, given
that he needed use of a cane to get himself around a white board and
debated the necessity of bathroom breaks lest he not make it there in
time---something that nobody on his team wanted to face, least of all
Doctor House himself. 

He felt the shadow before he looked up and saw House looming over him,
leaning heavily on his cane and cocking his head at first like a puzzled
retriever: then, as Chase bit his lip and waited, his boss' eyes lifted
towards the Cross and seemed to find the light. Chase tensed himself for
the inevitable, and it came. 

"Chase....By himself. Brooding, beneath a pint-sized statue of Jesus
Christ The Lord. Uh-oh," House stiff-lipped, all the while darting his
eyes about the room in an effort to ward off awkwardness, "Having a crisis
of the faith, I see? Now," House added, as he began his slow encircling
snare of sarcastic needling, "I hope this is not a sign from God that I'm
going to have to sift through some heavily unwanted paperwork later this
evening---in addition to all the paperwork my clinic duty gave me---in
obtaining files of aspiring employees. Really, Chase, you might want to
give some warning. Burning bush, that kind of thing, I know it takes a lot
of work, but a simple note would do." 

Chase swallowed hard and managed somehow to fix his gaze hard on House's,
and knew he must have conveyed some message because his boss visibly
stiffened. "How did things go with the rape patient?" he asked evenly,
commanding his voice to keep distanced from the blunt attack, instead of
submitting to what he knew would only sound like some juvenile comeback.
It was what House wanted, and Chase was not in the mood to relent.

House looked unprepared for this particular rebuke. "She terminated." 

"Terminated?" Chase could not keep the shock from his voice. This was news
to him. No one had said that the rape victim had been impregnated by her
rapist. He couldn't imagine what House could have said in order to help
her come to that conclusion. 

His boss' eyes grazed Chase's for a moment, then dropped
uncharacteristically to the floor with an even stranger interlude of
silence before he responded, "Patient was on her first term of
pregnancy....Fetus was barely a fetus, but she wanted to keep the little
unborn bastard runt," House spat, and Chase started at the bitterness in
his words and fought his urge to say something as House swayed almost
unsteady on his feet. He knew this was House's way of distancing himself
from a patient, but to have such disregard for a human life took Chase
completely by surprise. 

"It's a life," Chase muttered. 

"OK. I get it. You're pro," House sneered, leaving Chase's cheeks burning
beneath House's cutting glare. "I get it. The whole Christian way... 'Do
unto others', ect., ect.---Yeah, I've read the Book on the subject, and
I've already had this conversation today....and even the student
Theologist exchanged her beliefs for some chance at normalcy." 

"She was raped....That's not normal," Chase argued before he had a chance
to debate his opinion for his safety. He knew he was risking a lot just
taking a short stroll down the road of crossing Gregory House. 

"No kidding, Chase!" House practically roared with a heavy groan of
delayed disgust, throwing his head to the stained-glass skylights with
as-of-yet-unearthed exasperation, which Chase feared might be enough to
bring on the Plague. "You must be a genius, Chase. Golden boy Aussie
always has the right answer," his boss galvanized, then began to pace
slowly-or as fast---as he could manage with a restless to and fro motion
(which made Chase increasingly dizzy) in front of the Chapel's wooden
podium. 

Chase chose to ignore the insult towards his foreign heritage. "What is
the 'right answer', if I don't have it?" he asked, more to himself than to
anyone else. And, because he was in a Chapel, Chase had to consider he'd
just been asking God. 

"Look," House suddenly growled, wheeling about unexpectedly with eyes
aflame before Chase could breath a second breath after the last words
escaped his lips, "I've already had one too many endlessly droning,
impossible, pedantic, pathological, philosophical conversations today-and
this was one room I at least thought I could get away with it all. I would
have wanted to leave the Big Guy out of it to begin with---but did she?
NO! I did my duty, and you people still can't leave me be." House grasped
the cane so hard it pivoted on its axis. "I didn't want to be sucked into
some deep theological discussion either, but the girl just couldn't leave
"The Big Question Of Life" out of the equation. I should have told her she
should just rent Monty Python's "Meaning of Life" and be satisfied." 

Chase was dumbfounded: he had never seen House so out of sorts, and his
throat was so dry he wasn't sure it would work though he allowed himself
to speak, "What equation?" 

"To kill," House exhaled with pure vexation, "or not to kill....to Be, or
not to Be....it's all the same to her. 'Every life is sacred,' she
said..." House snorted loudly as he prattled on, and the sound
reverberated like a politely suppressed, heaven-sent fart around the room.
"Give me a break!" House appeared to shout at the sky. 

Chase had never heard House prattle onward with such passion---he almost
had enough passion for a devoted minister---unless it was medical in
nature. Perhaps House had leveled the playing field somehow, but Chase
couldn't picture it in his mind too vividly. 

"Then---you don't agree?" he managed, however timidly: and turned before
House could see his embarrassment at such cowardice. 

"Let's tell the psychotic Bastard who shot me in the thigh," House's
biting voice snapped his face back to stark reality, "that his life is
just as sacred as this nut's unborn baby." 

Before Chase could comprehend what he'd just heard, House made a beeline
for the doorway so quick Chase wondered if he'd only imagined the words. 

In the sudden abrasive quiet that House's absence had left, Chase tried to
regulate his breathing, which he had, without realizing it, cut off from
regularity in the last few minutes. House hadn't mentioned the shooting to
any one of them since it had happened, and Chase wondered if there wasn't
something else that had set off such a chain of unexpectedly troubling
events on a day when he was already benignly troubled. 

A dark thought slipped into his mind then, one that reminded him of
House's nearly landing a spot in jail that year after SIC-ing a cop with a
particular grudge for addicts on his tail, and his landing a simultaneous
spot in Rehab with Wilson and Cuddy both voicing concerns that House might
be hitting rock-bottom. Chase wondered momentarily whether House could do
the unthinkable, and an all-too-vivid picture of House, sprawled out
beside his useless cane on the floor beside an empty bottle of Vicodin
chilled him to the bone and sent him flying to his feet. 

In a flash Chase had darted out of the Chapel and was racing to the
elevators. He waited anxiously for the next car, jabbed at the button
repeatedly so many times he was surprised the elevator didn't jam in the
process of riding up to the fifth floor---the Diagnostics and Oncologists
floor---and, once the car's floor and the wing's floor were level with
each other, he bolted down the hallway at breakneck speed. 

His breath quickened by both running and the fear of what he might find,
Chase rounded the corner with sloth-like slowness---taking the same heed
as he would when he would find the all-too-familiar scene of his Mum
sprawled out with her face nearly in her bowl of Cornflakes and a bottle
of Vodka lying empty and neglected by her side on the breakfast table. 

When he reached the office door belonging to Gregory House, MD, he slowed
his step to a halt and altogether froze at the sight of House, inside,
feet propped up upon his desk, calmly tossing the fuzzy ball up in the air
and catching it with ease.

His fear transforming into relief-filled rage, Chase pushed the doors open
without knocking and stormed towards House's desk, the anger burning
inside him nearly twisting his stomach into knots. 

House observed him with the indifference he was more familiar with but it
angered him all the more. "Oh---Cripes, you should see your face,
Chase....You're not looking for a confessional, are you?" 

"You're a piece of work, you know that?" Chase outwardly fumed, pacing the
room, forcing himself to at least attempt a hint of stoicism. "You
know---" Chase fought to keep his emotions from overflowing, which he knew
was more fuel for House's fire. "I was ready to head for the roof, if I
didn't find you here..."

"Oh, Chase, don't do anything rash....Anyway, it'd be kind of hard for me
to make it up to the roof before you with this," House retorted snidely,
swiftly lifting up his cane, "don't you think?" He then leveled his gaze
with Chase's own, albeit the opposing glare, and smirked as though having
a revelation, with such brevity of composure that in turn only made Chase
want to scream. "Sorry, no points for you for saving the day today." 

"Why do you do that?" Chase heard himself demanding with unexpectedly
irate disgust, despite his better senses. He almost wanted the outburst to
continue; he suddenly wanted to fight. 

House glanced away so sharply at the words that Chase momentarily forgot
what he'd asked. "It's been a long day," House spoke to the ball in his
hand, which he flexed with white-knuckled fingers. "A long day, and too
many rooms." He then looked up to face Chase and stared hard, with such
intensity that Chase was at a loss as to why he was so perturbed. "Why did
you come to the Chapel, Chase? You didn't know I was there. Did you hear
from your Step mom today?" 

"What?" Chase, suddenly feeling world-weary, slouched heavily into the
chair in front of the desk, facing House reluctantly. He felt a sting
pinch his nose and glanced briefly away, and did not look back until he
was sure it had subsided. "Why are you talking about her?"

"Well....I should suppose that it's been a pretty long day for you.
Anniversary of your father's death and all....It would be today, January
30th, am I right?" House did not remove his eyes that seemed to follow
like a shadow.

Chase sucked in air so quickly he felt momentarily light-headed. When he
exhaled to talk, the air left him hollow. "You snooped, didn't you," Chase
muttered. It was to be expected, once House got hold of gossip there was
just no stopping him. 

All this hate....it's toxic. 

He sat up at once as though the words were a bell ringing loudly and all
at once relentlessly drumming away at his brain, and he looked around
almost in panic, wondering where he'd heard these words spoken before and
by who. When he found only House watching him passively, he felt suddenly
naked beneath House's quizzical expression. 

"Why Chase," House feigned innocence with the ease of an experienced
Shakespearean actor, "I'm appalled, that you would think I'd forget such
important dates. I do after all take good care of my trusty Palm
Pilot2000...I clean it lovingly every morning, after the usual routine of
checking my sight-for-sore-eyes. That whole Y2K thing was a great prompter
for some really impressive technological debuts---"

"Oh, stop with all the bloody crap, will you!" Chase pounded a fist on the
desk like gravel, though he didn't expect to hear his father's voice
(along with the whine of a fifteen-year-old's impatience) in his head as
the words came tumbling out of him. This was his father's response to any
backtalk as a child, before his father had left him in care of an
Oldie-turned-Alkie in his wake. He could just hear him now: "Pull ya head
in, already! Shut ya gob, stop playing sillybuggers and get your homework
done, you dirty grub kid!" 

Chase had to snap his head up from the floor, and steer himself back to
reality; the words were as vivid in his mind as though they were spoken in
the room. Much to his dismay, House did not sense his distress. 

"No, really," House went on, as though he hadn't heard the desperation in
Chase's voice, meanwhile tossing the ball continually, "the bug was
actually a BUG, which could shift face from a cartoon that ate your
desktop to clocks counting the seconds to the 'End Of The World'-and
that's clocks of all kinds skyrocketing in demand on the marketing
scale....Companies like Morgan Stanley emptied their wallets demanding
answers to pay for preparation products---"

"Stick a sock in it, you and your bloody big gob!!!" Chase reached for the
ball and snatched it mid-flight before it reached House's palm for a
landing, leaving even House momentarily impressed, though not for long as
he watched Chase draw his legs up in the seat to stew like a sulking
child. 

"Hmmm," House whistled reflectively, somewhat amused (if not somewhat
thrown by the outburst) "You're definitely not English. No Brit I know
speaks that God-awful rubbish...You must be from the Bush."

"I'm from Sydney," Chase hissed in a tightly controlled whisper. 

"Like I said... 'Land Down Under'," House intoned, his voice indicating
some shift in mental status from conundrum to giddy and simultaneously
failing to stifle an unheeded and overly-zealous chuckle of self-amusement
at one Dr. Chase's expense. "And I'm serious about that 'Meaning of Life'
stuff. She should know that, to quote Monty Python, 'most philosophers do
have an 'S' in them', but, contrary to popular belief, my last name may be
H-O-U-S-E, but the difference with me is that I don't opt to be one of
them." His boss shrugged lackadaisically. "But it's probably over your
head, I'd assume, since there's mostly British talk, and your people
apparently were exiled from bearing that brunt of humor." 

Chase stood up so fast his chair crashed to the floor, and faced House
ramrod straight before he could muster up the words. His fists clenched
and unclenched, but wound themselves into balls so tight that he was
certain his nails bit skin. 

"Yes. The anniversary of his death is today," he blurted, hearing a rush
of words he hadn't heard from his childhood come spilling out of him
before he could stop, "But I don't think it's any of your bloody bizzo,
you Smacked-Out Off-Your-Rocker Wally-Wanker! Now GET NICKED!" He swung
around before House could speak, trying to align his darting eyes to the
door, feeling dizzy from the onslaught of slang as he added brusquely
through stiffening lips, "Now, I'm off, and don't you dare even try and
tag, or you'll hear it from Cuddy tomorrow."

He didn't hear a sound as he stumbled out into the hallway, staggered down
the hall to barrel at last into the nearest bathroom, found a stall and
emptied his lunch before he could help himself. To unload was a relief,
he'd had a lingering migraine of a headache all day and somehow had
managed to hide it from everyone. He slid to the floor and tried to regain
his breathing, allowing the occasional cough while fearing that
someone---like Wilson---would find his whereabouts. 

House was wrong about one thing: he did not know when Chase came to work
hung over. He had boasted he thought he did, but what he hadn't known was
that Chase had come to work hung over more than once since his dad's
passing. 

His boss was too busy, however, keeping track of bloodthirsty cops and
Wilson and Cuddy's hounding on his Vicodin abuse to watch his shifting
moods that initial week he'd heard the news. Not even Foreman and Cameron
had noticed any difference, and he decided to forgo mentioning it to
anyone; House having known without telling---that his father had told
House and not him---was enough. 

Much to his shock, when he pulled his hand away from his eyes it was
slightly moist---dare he even say---wet? Like House himself, Chase had not
let himself shed tears for anyone since his father left. Not for his
father, nor his mother, nor himself. If not for the weight of the world on
his shoulders, what did he have to feel guilty for? He'd had to be the man
of the house, pull his own weight, and watch his mother slip into
alcoholic delirium all at the tender age of adolescence. 

He shook with the shock of the tears, hating them at the same time that
they relieved him of some of the weight he'd carried all those years
before---finally---leaving for the States to study the Medical Profession.
Now here he was, thirty one years old, and he felt as though his father
was standing over him even now, demanding he fall in his footsteps. 

--I'm sorry she died....I'm sorry you had to deal with that. It wasn't
your responsibility.

 --No, Dad, it was yours.

On weak knees (though feeling strangely stronger), he pulled himself up to
a standing position and, with much effort, guided himself somehow over to
the water basins to wash himself of guilt. At least...At least he had
taken House's advice, and had hugged his father goodbye. When, except for
that day, had House ever asked of his opinion?

What had happened in that room with that patient? Chase wondered, for some
reason unable to bring his thoughts out of the scenario with the missing
piece. She must have said something to him that kept him talking to her
that long. Yet: Why did he care? 

Once he'd dried his face thoroughly and with great care, Chase meandered
his way slowly towards the large windows overlooking the parking lot of
Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, wondering what he had learned
during his time there. Wondering what he'd been taught. 

He started at the sudden touch of an iron grip on his shoulder. The hand
lingered on his shoulder, and he feared who it would be if he turned
around. He turned and saw House, standing beside him, staring out as well.
He expected the anger to return, but instead he found an overwhelming
sense of pride and gratitude for House to have come searching for him, to
see if he was okay....unless....it all mattered on what House would say
next, if Chase was to settle for more words on House's behalf. 

"I wanted you to get angry, Chase," House confessed softly. 

The change in tone stunned Chase as did the words, and he blinked with a
safe mixture of confusion and disgust, but he did not trust himself to
look his boss in the eye. The moment was too unfamiliar, the words spoken
too strong. He wasn't sure which was more bewildering: the fact that House
was handing him a lifeline, or that 

"You needed to get some relief, some way, and I know you---we've worked
together now for three whole years. I've seen how you've handled yourself
these past months and you haven't been well. You may not know it, but I
know you like a book. I may have hired you on your father's behalf...but
your father put me with you for a reason, Chase. He knew you could handle
me....I know I'm an Ass, a Jerk, a Wanker---whatever you want to call
it---it's all Greek to me, and I studied Latin in grade school," House
added with a short laugh, which he abruptly quieted, "but I'm an Ass of
the best kind, for a reason."

Chase wondered if his mind was either working overtime or not working
enough; for some reason, the words were sounding like a foreign language
to him; it might as well have been Greek. 

"You--You--wanted to provoke me?" he exclaimed, staring, dumbfounded. 

The shock was steadily wearing off, as though he were waking from a long
sleep: and House's scheme was beginning to take shape, and he couldn't
believe his inane stupidity for having fallen for it so easily. 

"You wanted me...off the deep end so---so you could---what?" Chase,
exasperated, threw his hands up in surrender. "Congratulate yourself on a
job well done in sending me off to the pub where I would, no doubt, piss
myself into oblivion, instead of going home---or so you could sleep better
at night knowing you had knighted yourself to sainthood in righting all
wrongs?!" 

"I can't know how to answer all questions. Even though you helped tie us
once, I'm not God," House supplied flippantly, much to Chase's growing
disbelief and resentment in House's reserving himself to not respond to
Chase's button-pushing tactic. "And I wouldn't want to be...besides, God
can't make mistakes. 'To err is human'---" 

"'And to forgive is divine'." Chase shook his head bitterly. "Yeah. It's a
British saying...not Aussie, all right? And since you're only human,"
Chase demanded in an unprompted and chastising tone, "what mistakes have
you made lately?"

"I almost got a patient killed by sending her to a psychiatrist, when all
she wanted to do was debate the circle of life." House was grinning
manically, leaving Chase's head swirling with unknown conclusions.
"Sometimes it's really very simple, and the answer is right in front of
your nose."

Chase wasn't in the mood for a good tidings and forgetting about yet
another stunt that his boss had pulled successfully: this time right under
his nose. "Why were you in the Chapel, anyway?" he mumbled absently,
trying to shake off the image of House raising his eyes to God. "You
couldn't have known I was coming." 

House let out a signature smirk. "Your God must have sent me a sign
against my will."

"My God?" Chase felt horrified as he suppressed an unexpectedly embittered
chuckle, shocked that House could be so off the mark when it came to his
beliefs. (It seemed that either a person was meant to know you while
working together in three years' time, or they weren't; House, then,
occupying the latter.) "What makes you think I even believe in any God? I
never even said I did. You all just believe I do. I only set up that
"House vs. God" chart to amuse you. You don't believe in God, and you were
in that Chapel too," Chase pointed out soberly. 

"You're right. Don't know what got into me." House shrugged as though to
shake himself free of evil spirits. "I believe in Andre the Giant, anyway,
so I guess that makes me anti-fanatic. Score one for the Golden Boy." He
studied Chase curiously. "So what do you believe in? Buddhism? Zen?"

"Arthur Stace," Chase confessed, before he knew remembered who he was
confessing to, and immediately stiffened while he waited the taunting to
begin. Who knew what House could say in response to his devotion to a man
called "Mr. Eternity" who was merely a homeless alcoholic who wondered the
Sydney streets, scrawling the word "Eternity" in chalk that many people
considered a "one word sermon"?.....And that this devotion was not only
because the sermon which lead to Stace's conversion to Christianity was
held at his own St Barnabas Church?.....And that because his father, when
he was young, used to show him all the places where Stace's signature
artwork was found? Not to mention that one of his last memories of Sydney
was a nighttime view from his bedroom window, where he could see a large
copperplate sign that overlooked the Sydney Harbor Bridge that he would
focus on to feel safe, that helped put him to sleep at night? 

"What did you say to that patient to make her terminate?" Chase blurted
out, realizing that if he didn't know what House had said it would leave
him awake all night. 

House smiled almost dreamily-so strange was it to see his boss's mouth
twitch at the corners in an attempt at a lazy grin, that Chase was almost
speechless, his mind drawn blank. Unbeknownst to Chase, he quoted himself,
saying mystically, "I sit. I watch. I imagine." 

Chase blinked with uncertainty: it sounded like some strange code to his
ears where everything sounded underwater. He simply gaped at House.
"What's that mean?" 

 Instead, House just shrugged. "You know, I feel like a Hunter Valley
Shiraz right about now...."

Chase didn't expect to feel as stung as he did by the brush-off, even
though House caring more about a vintage Australian wine than him was
somehow more comforting than the uncharacteristic turn of events. Turning
from House, he spoke flat to the floor, "So go. Don't let me keep you." 

"It's better to have a designated driver," House added, taking Chase's
shoulder. "I got Wilson to go get the bottle. Call it...I don't know....a
perk of your job, kudos to your dearly departed Rowan for convincing me to
hire you. He said Shiraz was your Dad's favorite, so...let's all toast to
Mr. Rheumatologist, and get the horrible niceties over with."

For the umpteenth time that day, Chase didn't know what to say, but House
seemed completely comfortable with that scenario. He let House guide him
away from the overlook and down the hall to Wilson's office, where by the
comforting ambiance from a single, softly glowing green light, James was
already waiting. 

  
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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 NBC/Universal, 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.