Chase and Cameron arrived at his apartment building and she parked his Explorer in his assigned parking space. The one next to it was empty as always. Each apartment was allotted two spaces and, of course, Chase only needed the one.

They managed to make it into his building and to his floor without encountering Mrs. Giordano or any other curious neighbors. Cameron was glad for that. She thought Chase’s emotions were too raw for him to have to attempt to put on a mask for anyone.

The first thing he did was adjust his thermostat. It was about fifty-five degrees in the apartment since his central heating unit had been off while he was not home. “Sorry it’s so cold in here,” he apologized. “Be right back.”

Cameron watched him as he disappeared into his bedroom, but he quickly returned with a couple of blankets. “This will help,” he said, offering her an incredibly soft, thick blanket.

“Where did this come from?” she asked, admiring pattern which brought to mind an abstract work of art in black, white, red, and gray streaks of color. It certainly was not a Wal-Mart special.

“New Zealand,” he answered. “Alpaca wool,” he said, anticipating that her next question.

“This is so soft,” she said, brushing a corner against her cheek. She unfolded it and wrapped it around her shoulders.

“The heater works pretty fast,” Chase promised. He unfurled another blanket that was a deep orange and white plaid and wrapped it around himself.

Cameron tried not to snicker at his unusual taste in colors and the mental image of an orange and white plaid alpaca that flitted through her mind. Chase isn’t the only one who’s tired, she thought. Traffic jams were taxing.

“I want to make sure everything is okay,” he told her. “We don’t have to stay long if you don’t want to.”

“I’m not in any hurry,” she answered. She supposed they were just going to get a cab back to the hospital… or, more likely, separate cabs for separate locations. “I think you enjoyed spending some time here the other day. We can just sit and talk or watch TV or something for a while.”

“Um,” Chase considered that. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of the last time they were alone here.

“I’m not going to jump you,” Cameron promised. She made herself comfortable on his sofa, kicking off her shoes and curling up in the blanket.

Chase frowned. He did not like the idea of her thinking about their previous almost-intimate encounter. “I know,” he answered defensively. “I’m going to check on… stuff,” he told her, going back into his bedroom.

He thought it would be a good idea to clean out the refrigerator because there were items that may not have been bad when Cameron and Foreman were there, but certainly were by now. And he hated to even think about it, but there was a very full litter box that needed cleaning. First, he was going to check the pipes in his bathroom. He should run some water through them and flush the toilet, at least. The water in it was probably stagnant by now.

But before he tackled anything, he found that his own bed looked incredibly appealing. He had been sleeping in a recliner for weeks. Though the recliner was comfortable, he missed his own mattress. He heard the TV come on in the living room, and was glad that Cameron had found a way to amuse herself while he investigated his home. He started to go into the master bathroom for a moment, but decided he would lie down for just five minutes. He grabbed the pillow that was left when his coworkers gathered his things and stretched out on top of the comforter. He fluffed the blanket upward and let it fall gently over his body before tucking the edge of it under his chin. His apartment was still too cold. He exhaled contentedly as he sank into the thick memory foam mattress. Even this pillow--the one he did not usually use--felt luxurious. He savored the firm bed, reminding himself that he was only allowed four more minutes. He had polished his internal clock through medical school. If he knew he needed to be awake by six in the morning, he would wake up at five-fifty-five. His alarm clock, which was within arm’s reach from the bed, was rendered useless by his own perception of time. As he drifted, he realized was going to have to move back into his own place soon. He missed his bed. And he could not stay with House forever.

After fifteen minutes of watching a rerun of Ally McBeal, Cameron had gone to Chase’s bedroom to see what was keeping him. He was sleeping so soundly that she had decided to turn off the light and just let him sleep. She worried that his sleeping was a symptom of depression, but reasoned that he could also have been wiped out by the stressful day. One thing was certain: she was not going to leave him when she knew the kind of nightmares he was having. There was still the question of whether his nightmares were from the PTSD or linked to the ARVs. She hoped it was the medication. That regimen took several weeks, but PTSD could last for years. She had contented herself with the television, then decided to get something delivered for dinner.

There was a knock on the door. Cameron turned down the volume on the television and went to answer, keeping the blanket wrapped around her. The apartment was a comfortable temperature now, but she was enjoying the blanket too much to let it go. She grabbed the money she had taken out of her purse to pay for the food and opened the door, holding thirty dollars. She was surprised to find both House and Cuddy instead of a pizza delivery boy.

Cuddy took in the site of Cameron wrapped in the blanket and started to blush. “Are we interrupting something?” she asked.

House smirked, “Way to go, Grasshopper,” he said so low that neither of the ladies understood him.

Cameron scowled. “Just an Ally McBeal double feature,” she answered. “Chase is asleep,” she told them, not offering to let them into the apartment until they stated their business. She suddenly felt very territorial. She wanted to take care of Chase herself.

“Oh, did you wear him out?” House asked, pushing his way into the apartment and looking around. “More coordinated than I expected,” he mused aloud.

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Cameron snapped. She laid the blanket on the back of the couch to show them that she was still completely dressed. “He had a trying day. He fell asleep on the way over here and zonked out as soon as he could put his head on the pillow.”

“Wake him up. His day’s about to get worse,” House told her.

“Why?” she asked, concern overtaking her defensive attitude. She closed the door behind them after Cuddy also entered the room.

“We need to speak to him,” Cuddy told her. “Could you please get him for us?”

“What happened?” Cameron asked again, not making a move toward the bedroom.

“Like we’re going to tell you,” House bit.

There was another knock on the door. Cameron huffed, then turned around to answer. A pimple-faced teenage boy stood holding a square insulated bag. “Allison Cameron?” he asked. “I’ve got your order,” he continued after she nodded. He pulled out two medium sized pizza boxes, two Styrofoam dishes, and a chilled two-liter bottle of Pepsi.

“Keep the change,” Cameron said, trading the money for the food.

The delivery boy thanked her and left. She balanced the stack of food containers with one arm, held the Pepsi in the other, and shoved the door closed with her hip before taking the food to the table and setting it down. “Thanks for helping,” she said as House and Cuddy watched her balancing act.

“Good timing on our part,” House told Cuddy, inhaling the smell of the fresh pizza. She frowned at him.

“Get Chase. We should make him eat before we talk to him,” he suggested.

“Why put it off?” Cuddy asked.

“He sulks and refuses to eat when he’s upset.” House continued to investigate the apartment. He noticed what was not there as much as what was. There were absolutely no photos of Chase’s family in the living area. He found it interesting that Chase would display a photo of a big rock, but none of his parents.

Cuddy was surprised by his statement. Her surprise came from equal parts picturing Chase sulking and refusing to eat and picturing House noticing and actually looking out for him.

“What is going to upset him?” Cameron asked.

“Me beating you senseless with my cane is going to upset him,” House threatened, pointing the curved handle toward her. “Never mind. I’ll go get him,” he declared, ambling toward the open door of the master bedroom.

He flipped the light switch as he walked inside. “Chase,” he called. “Rise and shine!”

Chase covered his eyes with his forearm and grunted.

House ripped the orange and white blanket away from him and Chase patted the bed, trying to find it. “Time to wake up,” House ordered.

Chase opened one eye, squinting. “What?” he groaned.

“Out of bed.” House directed. He realized that Chase should definitely not be put on call until he finished the course of ARVs. They made him entirely too groggy. “Code blue!” he yelled.

Chase jumped out of bed and took a step toward his mentor before realizing that he was in his own apartment. “Wait… where?” he looked around the room. “House, what the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

“Is that any way to welcome me into your home after you’ve been sacked out on my sofa for two weeks?”

“Recliner,” Chase clarified.

“Your damn cat is on my couch,” House told him.

“Sorry,” Chase said. “I’m a little disoriented.” He yawned as if to emphasize how sleepy he was.

“We need to talk. But we can have pizza first,” House offered. “What do you bet Wilson is standing outside my door with Thai take out in one hand and a Kung Fu video in the other?” he said, chuckling. “Should we tell him we moved the party and invited girls?”

“Girls?” Chase repeated, following House out of the bedroom.

“Has it really been that long?” House asked.

Chase did not answer. He was startled to find that Cuddy was also in his living room. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his heart sinking. It was strange enough that House had followed him home. Cuddy’s presence meant something terrible had either happened or was about to happen.

“Cameron bought pizza,” House said, walking toward the table.

The women both looked at him suspiciously. Cuddy was definitely projecting her serious business aura.

“Why are you here?” Chase asked again, feeling what he clearly recognized as the first twinges of panic in his stomach. He inhaled slowly and deeply, trying to stave off an attack and hoping that no one would notice his defense mechanism.

“We need to speak with you about something,” Cuddy said. She was startled by his voice which was still raspier than before the attack. Given the extent of the damage, it might be months before his voice returned to the way it sounded pre-injury. “Is there anywhere we could talk privately?” she asked, glancing unconsciously at Cameron.

Cameron looked offended and angry.

Chase followed Cuddy’s eyes to Cameron and asked, “How bad is it?”

Cuddy tilted her head slightly without answering. “We should sit down.” She turned to Cameron, “Could you wait--”

“Let her stay,” Chase said. He did not see much of a point in making her leave the room. Odds were that she would know whatever it was soon anyway. “She’s been really good to me. Judging from your expression, I think I’m going to need a friend.”

Cameron smiled and took Chase’s hand in her own, leading him to the couch. She felt vindicated somehow since Cuddy wanted her to leave and Chase did not.

“Pizza?” House said pitifully from the table.

Cuddy rolled her eyes at him, then turned her back and went to the living area. She sat down in the chair adjacent to the sofa, which only left room for House to sit with Chase and Cameron or else drag over a chair from the dining area. He opted to sit next to Chase who was in the middle of the sofa. Cameron was furthest from Cuddy and she possessively kept her right hand intertwined with Chase’s left.

As ridiculous of a thought as it might have been, Chase hoped that his apartment did not reek of cat box odor. His boss and his boss’s boss were both there and that was not the impression he wanted his home to leave. He was a little perplexed by Cameron’s clinginess. If it were not such an absurd notion, he would have sworn she was marking him as her territory for Cuddy’s sake. He looked from one woman to the other and shook his head at the insanity of that idea.

“There was an incident at the hospital today,” Cuddy started.

Chase’s stomach turned and the color drained from his face. “They came back?” he asked. He had been at the hospital today. If Joe and Dave had come back it meant they were watching him.

“What?” Cuddy asked, slightly confused by the question. She quickly realized he meant the men who attacked him. “No. No, that’s not it,” she assured him. It should not have, but it surprised her that Chase’s immediate thoughts were of his attackers returning. She hoped that he would be able to get over those fears so that they would not paralyze him when he came back to work. It would be so much easier if the police could actually do their job and arrest the miscreants.

“Foreman punched out an intern,” House interrupted. He was certain that Cuddy had planned a whole speech about employee relations or something equally pointless. But Chase did not deserve to be jerked around when he was obviously jumping to worst-case scenarios.

Chase and Cameron both were shocked by this announcement.

“Why?” Cameron asked.

Cuddy glowerd at House. She wanted to soften the upcoming blow by talking to Chase for a minute or so before breaking the news.

“He overheard a conversation,” Cuddy started. “They were discussing rumors about you, Dr. Chase.”

Chase looked away from her and toward the floor. His cheeks started to feel warm. Cameron was suddenly patting his arm softly and he wanted to jerk it away from her, but forced himself not to do so, lest he hurt her feelings.

“What were they saying?” Cameron voiced Chase’s question.

“One said he had seen you outside of Dr. Johnson’s office and they made some other crass remarks.”

Chase bit his lip, unsure of what response he was supposed to have to this information. Treading this ground was almost unbearable. If other staff members were saying he was nuts because he was seeing a psychiatrist, they were not too far from the truth.

“Like what?” Cameron asked with a hint of protective anger showing in her voice.

“There’s a story that the two guys tried to pick Chase up in a bar, and he turned them down, so they tracked him to the hospital. One of the interns said that Chase looked gay and that made Foreman go ballistic.” House divulged.

Chase looked to House, “What happened?”

“Foreman punched the guy, knocked him across the hallway, broke his nose, busted his glasses.”

“Foreman defended me?” Chase asked, stupefied by the news. That did not seem so bad after all.

House nodded. “He warned everyone within earshot that he’d kick their asses if anyone implied that what happened to you was anything other than rape.”

For a moment Chase wondered why House and Cuddy were so austere about this. Then the whole picture dawned on him. Cuddy had told him before that rumors were circulating but no one knew the truth. Foreman had confirmed to a group of witnesses that he had been raped, leaving no room for denial. He felt like all the air was slowly being sucked out of his lungs.

“He told them that you’d been held at gunpoint and that they threatened to kill him and other people in the clinic if you didn’t cooperate.” House paused a moment. “And that your only prior contact with the men was to save one of their sorry lives.” He watched Chase’s face as he told him what had been disclosed. He waited for a response, but Chase simply stared at him.

Chase said nothing. He did not even blink. Foreman had certainly said a lot in the minute or two it took for this to happen.

“Chase?” Cuddy asked, leaning forward to get a closer look at him. She was pleased that House had taken over the story. Chase always seemed to react better to him than anyone else. “Is he okay?” she asked House.

“You need to breathe,” House reminded the young man. He almost reached out to pat his arm, but was apprehensive about the possibility that Chase might lunge forward and cling to him crying again.

Chase closed his eyes and inhaled. He propped his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, covering his face with both hands.

Cameron exchanged concerned glances with both House and Cuddy. They all seemed to be on edge, awaiting Chase’s reaction. Cameron reached toward him to rub his back, but House caught her hand before she could begin.

House held his palm up to her to tell her to stop, then pressed his finger to his lips to tell her to be quiet. He feared that if Cameron started comforting him, Chase might be left with the impression that this made things exponentially worse.

Chase had several thoughts swirling at once. Images of the attack itself were never far from his mind and this brought him memories of the cold metal of the gun pressed against him and how he had felt helpless knowing that so many other people were in danger. He saw the faces of the staff members he had passed on his way to the diagnostics office that morning. He remembered the panic and shame he felt under their surveillance. He thought of Foreman and his irrational nightmares about the man. Then he pictured Foreman angered by gossiping interns, mad enough to strike one of them. That played itself out in his mind several times: Foreman defending him. It was almost unbelievable.

Chase was aware that the others were watching him carefully. Their scrutiny was like a heavy weight pressing him down. He wanted to walk away and be alone for a while. He looked up and made eye contact with Cuddy. “Is Foreman okay?”

Cuddy let go of the breath she had been holding and nodded. “He’s fine. I suspended him for two weeks, but he’s fine.” She would never have expected those to be the first words out of Chase’s mouth after the story had been told.

Cameron patted Chase’s back, “Are you okay?” she asked.

Chase turned to her and nodded. “This is… not the worst thing that could happen,” he told her. He had to remind himself of that.

“But it’s exactly what you didn’t want to happen,” Cuddy reminded him, shocked by his acceptance. She wondered if he were putting on a brave front for the benefit of his audience. “Are you sure you’re fine with it?”

“Yeah,” he answered, looking down at the floor. “Maybe the truth is okay,” he said quietly, trying to find a reason to accept it. Maybe Foreman had done them all a favor. Perhaps, if the truth were known, the speculation and rumors and questions would stop. Spreading a truth was not nearly as appealing to baser human instincts as delighting in forbidden knowledge. “Maybe it will stop,” he said.

The other three could not be sure what he meant would stop.

“You're allowed get angry, you know,” House said, finding Chase’s composure alarming.

Cuddy was bothered that House would encourage Chase to be angry instead of praising his composure. If Chase were angry, he would be far more likely to press until he found that his medical history had been blabbed by someone who had also been credited with observations on his case.

“No,” Chase answered. House was starting to sound like Dr. Johnson now.

“Yes,” House responded. “You can.”

Chase looked down. I’m not angry, he told himself. This is not the worst thing that’s happened to me, he repeated silently.

“Foreman told everyone within earshot that you were raped. He didn’t sugarcoat it. Don’t sit there and pretend like it’s no big deal.”

Chase turned to House, “What am I supposed to do?” he asked, desperately. “It’s done. It can‘t be undone, can it?”

“You’re not a punching bag, Chase. You don’t have to accept everything that someone dishes out to you.”

“Unless it’s you?” Chase snapped.

“You don’t have to take it from me. You choose to.”

“I want to keep my job,” Chase answered.

“So you’re willing to let it slide that people you work with and random strangers know your personal business?”

“Shut up!” Chase raised his voice. House’s words were igniting the feelings of shame that often threatened to overpower him. But whatever fight was sparked inside him dimmed immediately. “I’m doing the best I can,” he added softly.

“You’re letting people walk all over you. You don‘t have to accept this stoically.”

“It’s who I am,” Chase argued meekly.

“It’s who your worthless, alcoholic mother trained you to be.”

“Don’t talk about my mother,” he warned, his meekness disappearing as the flame rose again.

“Because she was such a lovely woman?” House goaded.

“Yes,” Chase answered through gritted teeth. “Not another word.”

“Is she the one who taught you to lay down and take it no matter what?”

“House!” Cuddy tried to interrupt. He was poking his nose into things that clearly were not his business and had nothing to do with the current situation. To her, it looked like House was actually trying to provoke Chase.

“Why are you doing this?” Cameron asked House, while trying to pull Chase to her to hug him; but he resisted, shuffling away from her. He pulled his legs to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. She thought House should have known that a phrase like that could trigger Chase’s memories of the attack. Voicing his thoughts about the threat made against Foreman and his resistance to her touch convinced her that he was quickly retreating into that dark place again.

“Because this is not normal,” House answered, motioning his hand toward Chase who appeared to be crumpling before his eyes. “Look at him. No one should be this accepting of whatever shit life hands them.”

“Nothing about this is normal,” Cameron argued. “All things considered, Chase is handling this--”

“Like he doesn’t know that he deserves better,” House interrupted her statement to finish it the way he wanted. “What the hell did your mother do to you to make you think that you don’t deserve better than this?”

“What do you want me to do?” Chase asked him, his voice muffled because he was curled into himself, his forehead resting against his knees..

“I want you get pissed enough to stand up for yourself.”

“I don’t know how!” Chase admitted. He knew how to stifle his anger and how to shove it into a hiding place in his mind until he could refuse to acknowledge it at all.

“Of course you know how to get mad. What about when you found out I knew your father was dying and hadn’t told you?” House considered this. “Actually, you sucked at getting mad then too. The only reason for you not to be mad is if you think that you deserve all of this. Did the Catholic church warp your mind that badly? You don't have any cheeks left to turn.”

Chase did not answer.

“House, stop it!” Cuddy barked. House only glared at her while she silently mouthed, Look at him.

“No, not even the church can screw someone up this much,” House muttered with distaste.

“What am I supposed to do?” Chase raised his head to talk to House. “Get pissed and scream and throw things go beat up Foreman?” Chase asked his question earnestly. His eyes were wide as he implored House for the answer. “Would that make you happy?”

House tilted his head, eyes boring into Chase. “She beat you.”

Chase swallowed without verbalizing a response. He felt like House was looking right into his soul.

“Your mother convinced you that you deserve to be hurt.”

“You don’t know when to stop,” Chase answered, keeping eye contact.

“House, that’s enough,” Cuddy interrupted. This was clearly none of her business, nor Cameron’s.

Cameron watched the other three. She felt ill, thinking that House might be correct with his accusation. Who was she kidding? House was always right and it made tears spring to her eyes. There went another layer.

“I’m right,” House declared, pleased with himself. Suddenly a lot of things about Chase made sense.

“You son of a bitch. I’m not a puzzle.” Chase jumped up and started to walk away, but House also stood and reached out to stop him.

“You’re not denying it.” He grabbed the sleeve of Chase’s shirt to keep him from going further.

Neither of them noticed as Cuddy coerced a reluctant Cameron to follow her into the hallway.

“It wasn‘t that bad,” Chase said, compelled to minimize his mother‘s actions. “She only hit me when she was drunk. She didn‘t realize what she was doing,” he justified. “It’s not like she broke my arm or anything.” He had seen the results of what abusive parents could do when he worked in the ER and ICU. What his mother had done to him was nothing in comparison, absolutely nothing. “She loved me.”

House shook his head. “You’re explaining it so rationally… like you actually believe it,” he paused. “She was drunk more than she wasn’t.”

“You don’t know that,” Chase argued. “Maybe she only got drunk on weekends,” he offered.

House looked at him with suspicion. “Do you think you have to ignore your anger or you‘ll turn into an abusive drunk like her?”

It was not just his mother. Chase could actually pinpoint the moment he decided that anger was a “very bad thing.“ It was a simplistic assessment, but “a very bad thing” was way he still thought of it.

His family had been eating dinner in their formal dining room with exquisite china and crystal. Chase had been five years old and he did not like whatever the green stuff on the small plate was and he did not really like the fish on his bigger plate either. He thought it smelled funny. So, he sat there kicking his legs back and forth, picking at his food, and not really paying much attention to his parents until they got louder and louder.

He set his fork on his plate and started watching them yell at one another, like watching a verbal tennis match. His mother stood up and threw her glass across the room. He watched it hit the wall beside him and shatter, staining the wallpaper with what he thought was grape juice and sending razor like shards of crystal flying. Some of the tiny pieces hit him, tearing into his cheeks and arms and he started to cry as blood oozed from his stinging skin. His father had been infuriated that she had thrown the glass, but did not notice his bleeding son. Chase slid from his chair and got under the table just in time to see a plate land in fragments on the floor. By then, the blood from his arms was dripping onto the floor and the blood from his cheeks was staining his tidy white shirt. He was scared and crying, but his parents were too angry to notice him. They yelled until his mother stormed away from the dining room.

Only after she left did his father notice that his son was hiding under the table crying. Chase remembered the very odd sight of his father’s face peeking under the tablecloth to find him. “Robert, why are you crying?” he asked. “Are you scared?” Chase held out his arms for his father to see. “Oh, dear. Come here then. Let me see.”

Chase crawled out from under the table, more fragments of glass and china pressing into his knees. Rowan helped the child get to his feet and shook his head. “I think we can take care of this at home. Come along, let me get you cleaned up. It‘s a good thing your father is a doctor.” He picked up his son and hugged him. “I’m sorry you got hurt, Robert. Sometimes adults get angry and do bad things.” Rowan had not tried to excuse what happened. Robert had accepted that adults did bad things when they got angry. His mother’s behavior continued to reinforce that idea.

Chase thought about House’s question. He was afraid of the answer, so he avoided it. “I don’t want to talk about her. Drop it.”

“Admit that you’re angry,” House ordered.

“No,” Chase said defiantly. Now House had issued a challenge, attempting to press the right buttons to make him crack. “I don’t have any reason to be angry. It‘s not Foreman‘s fault.”

House took a step closer to Chase and Chase backed further away from him in response. “You’re going to face this and now is as good of a time as any,” he warned.

“No,” Chase resisted. “I don’t want to.” He took another step toward his bedroom, but House reached out to stop him once more.

“I bet you said that to those guys in the clinic,” House prodded.

Chase clenched his jaw as he looked into the insightful eyes confronting him.

“It’s probably best that you just keep it all to yourself though. That way it only hurts you. You wouldn’t want to hurt Foreman’s feelings. He’s been through so much: restraining you while you were sodomized; ignoring it while you were strangled and raped on the floor two feet from where he was standing with his back turned.” House spat the words with the contempt he felt for the acts committed against his junior. He noticed Chase cringe and look away. “And there’s all that hard work he’s put into trying to convince us to have you committed to the psych ward.”

The words coming from House’s mouth were crushing to Chase. He blinked back shameful tears as he stared at the other man’s dingy blue and white sneakers.

“Cameron’s been a great friend to you. Babysitting, buying you food. She tried to cure you with sex three weeks after you were viciously assaulted. But, she had your best interest at heart. Really. You owe her so much.”

Chase recognized the resentment he had pushed aside for the sake of not upsetting Cameron as it surfaced once again.

“Cuddy’s been so generous, allowing you six whole weeks to recover from such a brutal attack. I bet she’ll even offer you a nice, fat settlement if you agree not to sully the hospital’s reputation with a lawsuit,” he continued. “You wouldn’t want to speak up about security. They only failed to keep armed and dangerous deviants off the property. And we all know the police are doing the best they can to find the psycho creeps.”

Chase’s jaw remained set as he listened to the litany of events and circumstances. He clenched his teeth together.

“But you should probably keep it to yourself. You wouldn’t want to upset any of the people who have been so kind to you.”

Chase was startled when his teeth began to chatter. He shook his head to make it stop.

“Let it out,” House encouraged calmly.

“I… can’t,” Chase resisted, afraid that if he let it go it would consume him. He felt his left arm trembling and grabbed his left wrist with his right hand to still it. His chest was burning as he considered the things House had said. His mind darted rapidly through flashes of feelings and images. Security… Foreman…the clinic… Cuddy… lawyers… Cameron… Mum… Foreman… Cuddy… Joe.

He released his wrist because his right had started shaking just as badly as his left. He heard his teeth chattering like an old typewriter. His emotions billowed within his gut like smoke from a roaring inferno. “I… don’t… want… this!” He struggled against every word that escaped from his lips, trying desperately to hold them all inside. His whole body was quaking. He exhaled short, unsteady breaths. His eyes were stinging.

House watched him cautiously.

The anguished words started to flow from him like lava bursting free from years of dormancy under the earth. “I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t want to have to protect Foreman or anyone else. I had to. I didn’t have a choice because I’m not a bad person and I couldn’t let them kill anyone. I would have run like hell if I had the choice. It was just a game to them.” He caught his breath, but kept going. “And why were they able to get a gun into the hospital anyway? Why didn’t they do something about security when you got shot? Why did Foreman turn his back on me? Why do I have to give him absolution when he helped them? Why did this have to happen for Cameron to treat me like a person?” Hot, angry tears streamed from his eyes. “I want to come home. I don’t want to go to therapy. I’m not incompetent!” he declared. “I want Cuddy and her damn lawyers and advocates and counselors to leave me alone. None of them have a clue what this is like, so how can they tell me how to react? I want this all to go away. Every time I close my eyes, he’s there and I want him out of my head. I don’t want… I don’t deserve this!” It was more difficult for him to catch his breath and his voice had nearly disappeared from the strain.

“No, you don’t,” House said, calmly. He was certain that Chase had never before revealed so many of his thoughts at once to anyone. He had probably never had anyone interested in listening and it surprised House that he actually was interested in what was tormenting Chase, and not just because it was a piece of the puzzle.

Chase walked away from House and sat back down on his sofa. His heart was beating furiously. He felt sweat on his forehead and this throat was burning. He closed his eyes and tried to steady his respiration. He noticed the couch dip slightly when House sat down beside him. He was close, but not close enough that they would make contact should one of them shift in his seat. They sat quietly for a few minutes.

Chase realized that he felt a little less burdened than he had before House had dragged this out of him. There was just one thing left that he had to make House understand. “My mum,” he started softly. “She was sick.”

“I know,” House responded. He looked straight ahead while Chase continued.

“She wasn’t a bad person.”

“Yeah,” House acquiesced.

“She never meant to hurt me,” he defended her. “She was always sorry.”

House nodded, “Just not sorry enough to stop.”

Chase waited a full minute before responding. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I love her anyway.”

“I know,” House answered. “You’re a better person than the dismal cast of characters you’ve been stuck with in your lifetime.”

“They’re not all bad,” Chase argued with what was left of his voice. He gave a small, wistful smile to his boss.

“Be quiet,” House told him. “You talk too much.”

AN: This was, without a doubt, the most difficult chapter for me to write of any of my stories (original or fanfic) ever. Seriously. Great big thanks to Aenisses Thai and fluffykitty2001 for taking time to beta.