[fic: New Jersey Winter (1/3)]
title: New Jersey Winter (1/3)
fandom: house
rating: pg
chase and foreman, themes of mortality; no pairings
Foreman takes five vacation days and comes back looking worse. Chase thinks he knows why.
Part One
They said it was a record snowfall that winter. No one saw it coming. Trenton hadn't seen so much snow since the blizzard of 1996, and Princeton wasn't much better off. Temperatures dropped towards record lows. Twenty inches of snow appeared virtually overnight.
All that didn't mean much to Dr. Chase. He hadn't been in New Jersey long enough for that to matter and even found it marginally annoying that snow was making the newspaper headlines every other day. As if nothing else was going on in the world.
There was, however, one scrap-sized article that Chase had clipped from the Monday paper and folded into his coat pocket. Less than 100 words probably, but he'd read them over several times, wondering when he'd become so interested in the morbid.
TRENTON WOMAN FREEZES TO DEATH, FIVE FEET FROM RESIDENCE
The article was oddly poetic-as poetic as a woman walking from her house into a snow drift, letting the false warmth of hypothermia lull her to her death. It was the old expression, defined and personified: not enough sense to come in from the cold. She was sixty-two.
Standing at the corner with his hands jammed into his pockets and his face half hidden in a scarf, Chase watched a street sweeper clear the road and wondered…
A day later, Foreman disappeared.
"Cuddy gave him three days of vacation," House explained.
Cameron looked out the window. "I hope he went somewhere warm."
Chase ignored them both and started dealing himself a game of solitaire. Since House's legal trouble with Tritter had blown over, cases had been few and far between, as if Cuddy no longer had faith in Diagnostics.
"You know you can do that on the computer now," House said, nodding towards Chase's game. "It's the 21st century, man."
"You know you're supposed to be in the Clinic now," Chase replied.
"Let's play poker," House said, taking the seat across the table.
"You just want to take all my money."
"Well, yes."
"How about 'go fish'?" Cameron suggested. "I'd play that."
"Fishing for dollars," House added.
Chase scooped up the half-dealt solitaire game and slapped the cards into House's palm. "Fine. You deal."
Cameron almost smiled, watching as the cards shuffled and bridged in House's hands. "I can't believe we're getting paid for this."
"Foreman should take vacations more often," said House. "Now ante up."
***
Three days passed and Foreman didn't come back.
Cameron found an old game of Trivial Pursuit in one of the lounges and brought it up to Diagnostics. It would have been a lot easier, Chase thought, if it was written sometime after the 1970s. House won (in what Chase was sure was record time) and characteristically demanded they play again. "For dollars."
"How many red stripes are there in striped toothpaste?" Cameron read.
"It does not say that."
"Yes. It does."
Chase bit his lip. "Uh…two?"
"Five," Cameron said apologetically, tossing the card back into the battered box.
House clucked his tongue. "That was an easy one too."
For the rest of the day Chase refused to talk to him and switched shifts with a colleague to spend the rest of the day in the ICU where no one gave a damn about striped toothpaste.
***
The games stopped on day four, when Cameron got a call from her mother informing her that she'd just been volunteered to plan her sister's baby shower and promptly busied herself searching the internet for "the perfect balloons," "cutest invitations" and as a last resort "suicide capsules."
"You could probably find those here," House offered.
There were a few laughs to be had at her expense, but eventually House got bored and wandered off to find Dr. Wilson, leaving Chase alone with nothing to do. He dug in his pocket for a pen to doodle with or chew on and was almost surprised when his search produced the article from Monday. It was still snowing on and off, but what was pristine white powder had turned into dirty clumps of ice, and suddenly TRENTON WOMAN FREEZES TO DEATH seemed less poetic.
He smoothed it flat and shut it in his notebook.
***
On the fifth day, Foreman came back.
And for a man back from five days of vacation, he looked like crap.
"Well it's about time," House said, as Foreman shuffled in and peeled off his scarf and jacket.
"I tried to call Cuddy," Foreman said, "I couldn't get through."
"Well…" House seemed to consider this. "Do my clinic hours for the month and we'll call it even."
Chase looked up from the house of cards he'd been building. That was it?
Foreman just nodded. Something was wrong. He looked almost ashy. Chase had been glancing at Cameron since Foreman walked in, expecting her notice their colleague was looking rather worse for the wear. It was the kind of thing she was supposed to notice.
Cameron cared. Cameron made coffee and listened. Cameron gave hugs.
But Cameron was still occupied planning what had became known as "the damn baby shower," and her bouts of phone calls and well…whatever else she was doing were only interspersed by mutters of "babies are overrated." Chase had had to remind her on more than one occasion, that she was a doctor not a cruise director, which had earned a glare from her and a smirk from House. He was rather proud of that one actually.
But when Foreman sat down, oblivious to the fact that he'd toppled the house of cards, Chase was jarred back to his original curiosity: What the hell was wrong with Foreman?
***
"Do you think he's all right?" Chase found himself asking House after Foreman left for a consult.
"Oh sure. He's been partying for five days straight." House wagged his eyebrows. "Probably living the high life if you know what I mean. Just needs to sleep it off. But it's adorable that you're concerned like this. Shall I let him know?"
"Why wouldn't he be?" Cameron asked dully, when Chase repeated the question to her. "If you're so concerned, why don't you ask him?"
Even if her head was somewhere else, it was sound advice. Chase had no response.
***
Chase didn't particularly like wandering the halls and asking various orderlies if they'd seen Dr. Foreman, but luckily, he didn't have to look too hard. He found-or rather heard-Foreman just outside of Wilson's office, immersed in some sort of argument.
Foreman had trapped Dr. Wilson in the space between his office and the hall with one hand against the door and the other holding a file. Chase could tell it was a false show of aggression by the slump of Foreman's shoulders and the flatness in his voice. Wilson probably could too.
"And you want me to talk to her?" he was saying.
"To the family," said Foreman.
"I've got patients waiting…" Wilson moved a hand to the back of his neck.
"I just need you to tell them-"
"That she's dying? Foreman, you can do it-I've seen you do this."
Foreman worked his jaw and let his arm drop to his side. "Please," he said, like the word tasted foul.
Chase watched Wilson raise his eyebrows and felt his face doing the same. Wilson gave a small nod and reached out for the file.
"Thank you."
As Foreman turned, there was a brief flash of something…strange in his eyes when he realized Chase had been listening. Chase raised a hand in a lame little wave.
"What's up?"
"Work," said Foreman.
"It's uh…almost lunchtime," Chase pointed out, "Want to go downstairs and grab a bite?" Yeah, it wasn't the usual thing-but Foreman didn't have to look quite so suspicious.
"You look like you could use a break," Chase added.
"I don't know. I've got a lot of things to catch up on."
"Ten minutes. I'll treat."
Now Foreman was clearly suspicious. "Why are you suddenly all buddy buddy with me? What are you trying to accomplish?"
"You look like shit, Foreman. I'm just trying to help."
"Yeah." Foreman knocked shoulders with Chase as he pushed past. "Right."
***
Chase decided to try a different angle.
Back in diagnostics, he grabbed the grey/red ball House kept on his desk and beaned Foreman in the back of the head.
"Remember that time you almost died?" Chase asked, before Foreman had a chance to lash back at him. It worked for a second.
"What the hell?" Foreman demanded. His hand moved to the back of his head although it couldn't possibly hurt. "Leave me alone, Chase. I'm serious."
Chase ignored that, banking on Foreman being professional enough to not start pummeling him in the glass walled office.
"Are we friends?"
Foreman's brow immediately furrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"When you almost died," Chase explained, "Cameron said you changed your mind about her. Being your friend, I mean." Chase stooped to retrieve the ball and tossed it between his hands.
"You throw that at me again and you're going to regret it."
"So are we colleagues? Or friends?"
Foreman shook his head, turning back towards the table. "I think you know the answer, Chase."
Chase rolled the ball between his palms. "Well if you ever need someone to talk to-"
And like that, Foreman was back in his face. "Are you mocking me?"
"Maybe a little."
"You are a woman," said Foreman, "And I will smear you across the walls if you don't stop talking to me right now."
Strike two.
***
"Foreman called me a woman," Chase told Cameron later that day. She was distracted, of course, checking her messages.
"Is that unusual?" she asked idly.
"He threatened me."
"What do you want me to do about it?"
"Maybe you should talk to him?" Chase suggested. "Since you two aren't just colleagues and all that."
Cameron let out a ragged sigh and yanked her glasses from her face. "Because you still think he's acting strangely? Haven't we already had this conversation?" She shook out her hair. "Chase you seriously need something better to do with your time. Foreman's fine."
"Fine," said Chase. "Wait, where are you going?"
Cameron snapped her cell phone closed. "If House asks tell him I had to leave early to pick up flowers. Tell him to page me if anything interesting happens."
"You're not wearing your pager," Chase pointed out.
Cameron made a pained little smile. "My expectations aren't very high. See you tomorrow."
No sooner was she out the door that her pager came alive on the table, chirping it's shrill arpeggio. Chase picked it up.
House wanted a consult in the clinic.
When he went to check, just in case, House was sitting in exam room two watching what looked like Telemundo on his portable TV.
"Didn't I page Cameron?" he asked when Chase came in.
"She left early," said Chase. "You don't actually need a consult, right?"
House hitched a shoulder. "There's this spot on my back that's been bothering me. I was going to ask her to rub it. Hey, since you're already here-"
"I'm leaving early too," said Chase. "See you tomorrow."
He shut the door behind him.
***
When Chase saw Foreman again in the hospital parking lot, he decided to bite the bullet and try the direct approach.
"It's your mum, isn't it?" he called, more loudly than originally intended.
Foreman was clearing snow away from his tires, but he stopped, went rigid.
More quietly, Chase added, "She died."
When Foreman turned and rose up to his full height, Chase could have sworn he saw a look of panic flit across his eyes. Then there was anger-the kind of how-dare-you anger they'd see in patients asked to take a drug test after swearing they were clean.
And then there was nothing.
"Excuse me?" said Foreman.
Chase moved his hands to his pockets, suddenly aware of the cold.
"You heard me."
"Mind your own business, Chase."
"I saw the obituary. The funeral was the day before yesterday."
Foreman said nothing.
"I wanted to offer my condolences," Chase tried again. Foreman's chin had dropped and he was now staring intently at the snow streaked pavement beneath his feet. Then the silence was maybe too bleak for him, because he slapped his gloved hands together hard, then banged a fist against the roof of his car.
"What do you want, Chase?"
"I told you-"
"Really." Foreman's voice was sharp. "You wanted to come out here and tell me you're sorry-that you feel bad, so we can…what? Go cry together about our dead mothers? And what do you do-read the Trenton paper with your morning coffee? Why did you even have the obituary?"
"There was a piece in the Gazette"-Chase felt around his pockets but they were empty empty empty-"Something made me think…I thought…I looked it up."
"So you solved the mystery." Foreman shook his head like he couldn't believe it and gave his car another thump. "Jesus. You looked it up. If you actually gave a damn, you would have asked me where I'd been. Maybe asked me what was wrong? You're only interested in this because you're so damn bored."
Maybe there was some truth in that statement, because it stung Chase in a way he hadn't braced himself for. Suddenly he didn't feel good about standing in the slushy parking lot, staring at Foreman.
"I just thought," Chase spat, with more venom than he felt, "you'd want someone to notice."
Foreman's face went blank; his mouth closed. He had no response.
The winter air just hung there between them, like something left unsaid-heavy, and clouded with their breath. Chase realized now that he was more invested than he'd originally intended.
Part Two
a/n: Geez, I actually wrote something. Here's to hoping my writer's block is over.
fandom: house
rating: pg
chase and foreman, themes of mortality; no pairings
Foreman takes five vacation days and comes back looking worse. Chase thinks he knows why.
Part One
They said it was a record snowfall that winter. No one saw it coming. Trenton hadn't seen so much snow since the blizzard of 1996, and Princeton wasn't much better off. Temperatures dropped towards record lows. Twenty inches of snow appeared virtually overnight.
All that didn't mean much to Dr. Chase. He hadn't been in New Jersey long enough for that to matter and even found it marginally annoying that snow was making the newspaper headlines every other day. As if nothing else was going on in the world.
There was, however, one scrap-sized article that Chase had clipped from the Monday paper and folded into his coat pocket. Less than 100 words probably, but he'd read them over several times, wondering when he'd become so interested in the morbid.
TRENTON WOMAN FREEZES TO DEATH, FIVE FEET FROM RESIDENCE
The article was oddly poetic-as poetic as a woman walking from her house into a snow drift, letting the false warmth of hypothermia lull her to her death. It was the old expression, defined and personified: not enough sense to come in from the cold. She was sixty-two.
Standing at the corner with his hands jammed into his pockets and his face half hidden in a scarf, Chase watched a street sweeper clear the road and wondered…
A day later, Foreman disappeared.
"Cuddy gave him three days of vacation," House explained.
Cameron looked out the window. "I hope he went somewhere warm."
Chase ignored them both and started dealing himself a game of solitaire. Since House's legal trouble with Tritter had blown over, cases had been few and far between, as if Cuddy no longer had faith in Diagnostics.
"You know you can do that on the computer now," House said, nodding towards Chase's game. "It's the 21st century, man."
"You know you're supposed to be in the Clinic now," Chase replied.
"Let's play poker," House said, taking the seat across the table.
"You just want to take all my money."
"Well, yes."
"How about 'go fish'?" Cameron suggested. "I'd play that."
"Fishing for dollars," House added.
Chase scooped up the half-dealt solitaire game and slapped the cards into House's palm. "Fine. You deal."
Cameron almost smiled, watching as the cards shuffled and bridged in House's hands. "I can't believe we're getting paid for this."
"Foreman should take vacations more often," said House. "Now ante up."
***
Three days passed and Foreman didn't come back.
Cameron found an old game of Trivial Pursuit in one of the lounges and brought it up to Diagnostics. It would have been a lot easier, Chase thought, if it was written sometime after the 1970s. House won (in what Chase was sure was record time) and characteristically demanded they play again. "For dollars."
"How many red stripes are there in striped toothpaste?" Cameron read.
"It does not say that."
"Yes. It does."
Chase bit his lip. "Uh…two?"
"Five," Cameron said apologetically, tossing the card back into the battered box.
House clucked his tongue. "That was an easy one too."
For the rest of the day Chase refused to talk to him and switched shifts with a colleague to spend the rest of the day in the ICU where no one gave a damn about striped toothpaste.
***
The games stopped on day four, when Cameron got a call from her mother informing her that she'd just been volunteered to plan her sister's baby shower and promptly busied herself searching the internet for "the perfect balloons," "cutest invitations" and as a last resort "suicide capsules."
"You could probably find those here," House offered.
There were a few laughs to be had at her expense, but eventually House got bored and wandered off to find Dr. Wilson, leaving Chase alone with nothing to do. He dug in his pocket for a pen to doodle with or chew on and was almost surprised when his search produced the article from Monday. It was still snowing on and off, but what was pristine white powder had turned into dirty clumps of ice, and suddenly TRENTON WOMAN FREEZES TO DEATH seemed less poetic.
He smoothed it flat and shut it in his notebook.
***
On the fifth day, Foreman came back.
And for a man back from five days of vacation, he looked like crap.
"Well it's about time," House said, as Foreman shuffled in and peeled off his scarf and jacket.
"I tried to call Cuddy," Foreman said, "I couldn't get through."
"Well…" House seemed to consider this. "Do my clinic hours for the month and we'll call it even."
Chase looked up from the house of cards he'd been building. That was it?
Foreman just nodded. Something was wrong. He looked almost ashy. Chase had been glancing at Cameron since Foreman walked in, expecting her notice their colleague was looking rather worse for the wear. It was the kind of thing she was supposed to notice.
Cameron cared. Cameron made coffee and listened. Cameron gave hugs.
But Cameron was still occupied planning what had became known as "the damn baby shower," and her bouts of phone calls and well…whatever else she was doing were only interspersed by mutters of "babies are overrated." Chase had had to remind her on more than one occasion, that she was a doctor not a cruise director, which had earned a glare from her and a smirk from House. He was rather proud of that one actually.
But when Foreman sat down, oblivious to the fact that he'd toppled the house of cards, Chase was jarred back to his original curiosity: What the hell was wrong with Foreman?
***
"Do you think he's all right?" Chase found himself asking House after Foreman left for a consult.
"Oh sure. He's been partying for five days straight." House wagged his eyebrows. "Probably living the high life if you know what I mean. Just needs to sleep it off. But it's adorable that you're concerned like this. Shall I let him know?"
"Why wouldn't he be?" Cameron asked dully, when Chase repeated the question to her. "If you're so concerned, why don't you ask him?"
Even if her head was somewhere else, it was sound advice. Chase had no response.
***
Chase didn't particularly like wandering the halls and asking various orderlies if they'd seen Dr. Foreman, but luckily, he didn't have to look too hard. He found-or rather heard-Foreman just outside of Wilson's office, immersed in some sort of argument.
Foreman had trapped Dr. Wilson in the space between his office and the hall with one hand against the door and the other holding a file. Chase could tell it was a false show of aggression by the slump of Foreman's shoulders and the flatness in his voice. Wilson probably could too.
"And you want me to talk to her?" he was saying.
"To the family," said Foreman.
"I've got patients waiting…" Wilson moved a hand to the back of his neck.
"I just need you to tell them-"
"That she's dying? Foreman, you can do it-I've seen you do this."
Foreman worked his jaw and let his arm drop to his side. "Please," he said, like the word tasted foul.
Chase watched Wilson raise his eyebrows and felt his face doing the same. Wilson gave a small nod and reached out for the file.
"Thank you."
As Foreman turned, there was a brief flash of something…strange in his eyes when he realized Chase had been listening. Chase raised a hand in a lame little wave.
"What's up?"
"Work," said Foreman.
"It's uh…almost lunchtime," Chase pointed out, "Want to go downstairs and grab a bite?" Yeah, it wasn't the usual thing-but Foreman didn't have to look quite so suspicious.
"You look like you could use a break," Chase added.
"I don't know. I've got a lot of things to catch up on."
"Ten minutes. I'll treat."
Now Foreman was clearly suspicious. "Why are you suddenly all buddy buddy with me? What are you trying to accomplish?"
"You look like shit, Foreman. I'm just trying to help."
"Yeah." Foreman knocked shoulders with Chase as he pushed past. "Right."
***
Chase decided to try a different angle.
Back in diagnostics, he grabbed the grey/red ball House kept on his desk and beaned Foreman in the back of the head.
"Remember that time you almost died?" Chase asked, before Foreman had a chance to lash back at him. It worked for a second.
"What the hell?" Foreman demanded. His hand moved to the back of his head although it couldn't possibly hurt. "Leave me alone, Chase. I'm serious."
Chase ignored that, banking on Foreman being professional enough to not start pummeling him in the glass walled office.
"Are we friends?"
Foreman's brow immediately furrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"When you almost died," Chase explained, "Cameron said you changed your mind about her. Being your friend, I mean." Chase stooped to retrieve the ball and tossed it between his hands.
"You throw that at me again and you're going to regret it."
"So are we colleagues? Or friends?"
Foreman shook his head, turning back towards the table. "I think you know the answer, Chase."
Chase rolled the ball between his palms. "Well if you ever need someone to talk to-"
And like that, Foreman was back in his face. "Are you mocking me?"
"Maybe a little."
"You are a woman," said Foreman, "And I will smear you across the walls if you don't stop talking to me right now."
Strike two.
***
"Foreman called me a woman," Chase told Cameron later that day. She was distracted, of course, checking her messages.
"Is that unusual?" she asked idly.
"He threatened me."
"What do you want me to do about it?"
"Maybe you should talk to him?" Chase suggested. "Since you two aren't just colleagues and all that."
Cameron let out a ragged sigh and yanked her glasses from her face. "Because you still think he's acting strangely? Haven't we already had this conversation?" She shook out her hair. "Chase you seriously need something better to do with your time. Foreman's fine."
"Fine," said Chase. "Wait, where are you going?"
Cameron snapped her cell phone closed. "If House asks tell him I had to leave early to pick up flowers. Tell him to page me if anything interesting happens."
"You're not wearing your pager," Chase pointed out.
Cameron made a pained little smile. "My expectations aren't very high. See you tomorrow."
No sooner was she out the door that her pager came alive on the table, chirping it's shrill arpeggio. Chase picked it up.
House wanted a consult in the clinic.
When he went to check, just in case, House was sitting in exam room two watching what looked like Telemundo on his portable TV.
"Didn't I page Cameron?" he asked when Chase came in.
"She left early," said Chase. "You don't actually need a consult, right?"
House hitched a shoulder. "There's this spot on my back that's been bothering me. I was going to ask her to rub it. Hey, since you're already here-"
"I'm leaving early too," said Chase. "See you tomorrow."
He shut the door behind him.
***
When Chase saw Foreman again in the hospital parking lot, he decided to bite the bullet and try the direct approach.
"It's your mum, isn't it?" he called, more loudly than originally intended.
Foreman was clearing snow away from his tires, but he stopped, went rigid.
More quietly, Chase added, "She died."
When Foreman turned and rose up to his full height, Chase could have sworn he saw a look of panic flit across his eyes. Then there was anger-the kind of how-dare-you anger they'd see in patients asked to take a drug test after swearing they were clean.
And then there was nothing.
"Excuse me?" said Foreman.
Chase moved his hands to his pockets, suddenly aware of the cold.
"You heard me."
"Mind your own business, Chase."
"I saw the obituary. The funeral was the day before yesterday."
Foreman said nothing.
"I wanted to offer my condolences," Chase tried again. Foreman's chin had dropped and he was now staring intently at the snow streaked pavement beneath his feet. Then the silence was maybe too bleak for him, because he slapped his gloved hands together hard, then banged a fist against the roof of his car.
"What do you want, Chase?"
"I told you-"
"Really." Foreman's voice was sharp. "You wanted to come out here and tell me you're sorry-that you feel bad, so we can…what? Go cry together about our dead mothers? And what do you do-read the Trenton paper with your morning coffee? Why did you even have the obituary?"
"There was a piece in the Gazette"-Chase felt around his pockets but they were empty empty empty-"Something made me think…I thought…I looked it up."
"So you solved the mystery." Foreman shook his head like he couldn't believe it and gave his car another thump. "Jesus. You looked it up. If you actually gave a damn, you would have asked me where I'd been. Maybe asked me what was wrong? You're only interested in this because you're so damn bored."
Maybe there was some truth in that statement, because it stung Chase in a way he hadn't braced himself for. Suddenly he didn't feel good about standing in the slushy parking lot, staring at Foreman.
"I just thought," Chase spat, with more venom than he felt, "you'd want someone to notice."
Foreman's face went blank; his mouth closed. He had no response.
The winter air just hung there between them, like something left unsaid-heavy, and clouded with their breath. Chase realized now that he was more invested than he'd originally intended.
Part Two
a/n: Geez, I actually wrote something. Here's to hoping my writer's block is over.