[OTA, TAG CHASE, FOX, ROB] Assumption makes an ass out of you... and some guy named "Umption."

[c18_h21_no3]

House had been sitting up in his office when his pager went off. It was Chase. He couldn't tell if his page meant Fox was taking Rob off of the life support, or if this meant Rob was awake and dancing on the tables. House was pretty sure the former was going to be the one he was going to have to deal with

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[chasemd]

Chase came up beside House, both of them still a safe enough distance away to not intrude on anythign Fox might be trying to say to Rob. He caught the sigh of relief and threw House a small smirk as he folded his arms across his chest. "Is it going to piss you off more that there are no explanations for any of this, or that there isn't a puzzle to solve anymore?" he asked.

[c18_h21_no3]

"Absolutely," House answered lightly, eyes shifting from the couple to Chase. It was something he would ask Rob about when he woke up. Right now, the fact that House didn't have to spend the energy he really did not possess at this stage of the game to convince and/or guilt Fox into keeping Rob alive was a bit of a weight off of his shoulders. He'd deal with that later. "I told you he was going to wake up," he added.

[chasemd]

Chase snorted. "Yeah, right. You were as fucked over on this as the rest of us. He trumped you and you hated it. Now he's just..." He gestured to the bed. "I was about thirty seconds from removing the ventilator when he started choking on it. She wasn't going to switch it off, House. Taking your own life is one thing, but taking someone else's is an entirely different ball game."

[c18_h21_no3]

"As far as I remember," House started, "... She's not the kind of person that has qualms about killing other people." He turned his attention back to Rob, pressing his lips together as he he tightened the grip on the handle of his cane. Rob was an interesting one, he was willing to admit. Exactly how interesting he was going to be when he was completely conscious was an entirely different story. "Any sign of brain damage? Has he spoken?"

[chasemd]

"He's not just any other people to her, House," Chase pointed out, eyes on Rob for any further changes. "She would take her own life again before taking his. Hell, she would take yours before she took his. It's just not something she realised until he woke up."

He shook his head. "I don't think so, miraculously enough. He managed a few words at best, but speech is rarely the first function to return after a coma. I'll get Foreman to check him over shortly. He recognised her, though. He's wavering in and out of consciousness. I think she is what he responded to coming out of it. He's reactive to pain, pupils are equal and reactive to light, he responded to verbal stimuli to squeeze his fingers. He's probably feeling like he's got a really bad hangover right now."

[c18_h21_no3]

House nodded, giving Chase a slight grin as he gestured toward the bed, "Rob made it perfectly clear to me before he took his little nosedive that Lara Croft here wouldn't have any issues popping me one. I'm well aware. Now all we have to do is wait and see if he can actually button his shirt properly and won't drool everywhere every time he tries to talk. You know just as well as I do that there's little chance he's going to come out of this completely unscathed."

[chasemd]

Chase nodded a little. It had been something not very far from his mind since this whole thing started. There was always a chance if Rob woke, it wouldn't be like he was before he got ill. "Sure, but I hear you electrocuted yourself and came out unscathed. Stranger things have happened. Technically he's also not unscathed. He died back home. This should have killed him, but it didn't. Might just be one of those things," he said with a shrug. He glanced at House. "Maybe he's God," he added with a snigger.

[c18_h21_no3]

"You think he'll he happy he's dead back home? He didn't have all that much to look forward to going back to, at least judging by what he told me." It made House wonder how something like that was determined here. How did he know he wasn't... hit by a bus or something after crossing the street on the way home from Cuddy's? How did Amber deal with this? It seemed like despite the fact that Rob's questions were answered, at least medically speaking, it just raised more questions about the puzzle of the island itself. This place was becoming far more interesting than he first took it for. And if he did end up solving that, too, did he go back home? He had been here before, according to Chase... did that mean that he would be back if he left again as well

[chasemd]

"He's got more here. Maybe some people just do. Maybe you can choose to stay. Who knows? I never tried very hard to get home myself. I know I'm not dead because there are people here who tell me shit that's gone down back home. Can't say any of that makes me in a hurry to get back, either. He might not have had anything to look forward to but he did think he was still alive back there. I don't think it's going to go down easy. Knowing you die before you get here is one thing, but being told by someone else you do?" Chase shook his head. "It still bothers Amber, even if she doesn't talk about it. No one is just going to take it without some sort of weird feeling about it. Who knows how he is going to take the news? Maybe he'll just be glad he's stuck here with Fox."

He snorted with a laugh. "And I'm Fabio with a really big penis," he returned and wet his lips. "Some people do just... live. There are many medically unexplainable deaths in text, why not unexplainable lives?"

[c18_h21_no3]

"Did you talk to her?" House asked, remembering how Amber froze when told to do the Gram stain.

"Nothing is ever unexplainable. 'Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow,' as Nietzsche so adequately puts it. Don't waste time talking to me about miracles. There's a reason why all things happen."

[chasemd]

Chase nodded. "Yes, I did," he replied, throwing House a look without any elaboration.

"I didn't say miracle. I said unexplainable. Not even you have the answer to everything, House, and you're going to die not having all the answers. We all are. This very place is evidence of that. For all we know, the whole time he was in a coma, he might have been mentally back home going through every moment until his death. He woke up barely minutes before we were going to pull the plug. I'm not saying miracle. I gave up believing shit like that when I walked away from the Seminary. I'm just saying some things are even beyond doctors to work out."

[c18_h21_no3]

House threw him the same look back, "Aaaannnd...?" Chase honestly thought he was going to get away with a simple answer? House hadn't seen Amber this bothered since he fired her.

[chasemd]

"And what? You want info, you can talk to her. I'm not your secretary," Chase told him with a smirk. "And I know what you're thinking. You're forgetting the Amber here, is different to the one back home. Just like I'm not the same. Things are amplified here. That's what I've been trying to tell you. This place has a way of... making you feel things that were easy to push away back home."

[c18_h21_no3]

"No, you are the same, just like she's the same. Like I'm the same," House refuted. "Different time periods, yes, but you're the same Chase I fired two years ago. And if that was the case, Cuddy would have been all over me by now."

[chasemd]

Chase snorted. "Never pegged you to be so deluded, House. The Chase you fired two years ago with two years here on the island. Amber has a year here, Cuddy close to a year. We're not the same, and we never will be. But you keep telling yourself we're the same if it helps you deal with it. We have a closed ward for when it finally sends you crazy trying to work it out." He looked at House with a raised eyebrow. "Either that, or you believe what I'm saying and you're scared of what the island is going to change in you. Interesting."

[c18_h21_no3]

House gave him a look, shaking his head. "People don't change. Eventually you're going to figure out how to get out of here, and you're going to go right back to where you left off. Unchanged. You aren't even going to remember being here." He gestured to the bed, "You're not going to remember saving him, you're not going to remember running this hospital, and you're not going to remember Amber. This island is just temporary."