FIC: "Sunday's Child", Robert Chase
Title: Sunday's Child
Author: hawkeyecat
Fandom: House, M.D.
Claim: Dr. Robert Chase
Prompt: 068. Lightening
Community: fanfic100
Word Count: 979
Rating: Older teen/soft R
Disclaimer: If this turns out to be canon, no one will be more surprised than I.
Author's Notes: Spoiler warning for 2x14, “Sex Kills”. Formatting this one took forever, because getting it just right was so difficult. I love this piece, but I’d appreciate feedback on it, particularly if there’s anything that doesn’t work; it’s different from my usual style. Thanks to cerieblue819 for feeding the bunny, leaper182 for being a sounding board despite how I presented this one to her, professorohki for helping me with the coding, and the ever-wonderful amazonqueenkate for not letting me end it on a subpar note, providing me with coffee, and putting up with my general insecurity over this.
He’s afraid, come Monday morning, that Wilson may kill him.
Julie informed him she was telling her husband, as though warning him, and Robert couldn’t find a good way to object, not with her sweet perfume mixing with sweat and sex on his sheets, Julie’s dark curls tumbling down around her and spilling across her breasts. He wondered how Wilson didn’t realize Julie had been carrying on an affair, but then recalled Julie’s complaints of feeling alone, neglected.
Sunday dawns clear and cold, and Chase has to force himself outside for a run, fortified only by a mug of hot, strong, sweet tea; he can eat when he gets back.
They’d met in a quiet bar, upscale, the kind Robert went to when he wanted to be alone in a crowd. He’d deliberated long and hard before ordering, deciding a single glass of brandy wouldn’t hurt. It was rich and smooth, well worth the price, and burned just right going down.
By the second mile, the cold air searing his lungs, Chase turns back toward his apartment. It’s not yet eight; during the hours before he’s to meet Julie for lunch and a Talk, he’ll figure out what he wants to say.
He’d noticed Julie when he walked in; how could he do otherwise? She wasn’t much taller than Cameron, perhaps a hundred and seventy centimeters, but she wore her heartbreak as a protective coat, countering the signals given off by the fitted black jacket, the tailored tan slacks, the strappy black heels. She wore her long hair up, and her makeup smudged around her eyes.
Chase considers a fast shower, but decides against it, filling the bathtub instead, as hot as he can stand, while he makes breakfast: turkey sausage, wheat toast with jam, more tea. Coffee is for days he has to work.
She had approached him, a surprise given how distressed she’d seemed. Robert, remembering the manners instilled in him as a small boy, invited her to sit, giving only his first name, as much as she offered.
More than half an hour in the water, and Chase is utterly relaxed, the chill leached from his bones and any potential soreness averted. He tucks a towel around his waist and returns to his bedroom to dress, where he imagines he can still smell Julie’s perfume.
Robert’s carefully maintained reserve let him listen to Julie’s story of a neglectful, absent husband, and its familiarity started a slow-churning anger within him. By her account, her marriage was all but over. She was, she said, tired, of being alone, of being forgotten, of just being instead of living the life her dreams promised.
Lunch won’t be extravagant, sandwiches or salad at a middle-class deli Chase has come to like. But they need to figure out what they’re going to do, whether they’ll keep seeing each other or not.
Julie hadn’t mentioned her husband’s name, instead calling him “he”, the heavy emphasis coming across as exhausted and longing, not spiteful or hating. Robert hadn’t asked her to come home with him that night; one-night stands made him nervous, and he didn’t like that she was still married. Instead, they arranged to meet the next night at the same bar, Julie saying shortly that her husband wouldn’t miss her, and Robert had caught himself wondering how anyone could neglect such a woman.
He realizes he still doesn’t know if Wilson knows who Julie’s affair has been with.
The second evening, they had left the bar before Chase ordered his drink, but not for his apartment. Instead, he’d taken her to a diner and ordered a sandwich and tea to Julie’s slice of chocolate silk pie and cup of coffee, and Robert listens to the beautiful, tragic woman’s story of her marriage.
Chase finds a novel to read, a Dean Koontz thriller he’s fond of, and settles into his chair with it. Sundays are his day, a promise he made to himself when he left seminary, and one he’s managed to keep aside from med school and his residency. But his mind keeps returning to Julie, pretty Julie who lights up for him, who makes him feel needed.
By the third night, Robert hadn’t cared who her husband was. She was smiling now, and it brought her face to life. Leaving the diner, she’d whispered to him, “You make me feel alive,” and Robert had stumbled over his words to invite her back to his apartment, stupidly grateful this was Friday.
Two hours later, the book has lost its appeal; his mind is firmly focused on lunch with Julie. Is she keeping the house? Does she want to live together? Questions fall like leaves through his mind, until only one is left, the branch that looms constant.
Four months after they met, Julie had confided, “I love you, Rob,” and nothing has made him feel at once so small and terrible, and yet so mighty and wanted.
Does she still?
Two and a half months after Julie’s declaration, Robert had worked up the nerve to ask who her husband was. His logic was simple: he needed to know if arranging to flee to Spain would be necessary to escape the wrath of the ghost lurking in the corner. Her distant answer-“James Wilson, maybe you know him, he’s an oncologist”-had rendered that plan moot. House would be able to find him anywhere, and Robert had wished he’d never asked.
It’s nearly eleven-thirty; Chase folds over the corner of the page in his forgotten hardcover and sets it on his coffee table. Standing, he stretches and pads into his room to find a pair of shoes. At least soon he’ll know if his life is in imminent danger from a cane-wielding maniac and his tank-driving best friend.
More importantly, he’ll know if he still has Julie, or if she’s leaving him, too.
Author: hawkeyecat
Fandom: House, M.D.
Claim: Dr. Robert Chase
Prompt: 068. Lightening
Community: fanfic100
Word Count: 979
Rating: Older teen/soft R
Disclaimer: If this turns out to be canon, no one will be more surprised than I.
Author's Notes: Spoiler warning for 2x14, “Sex Kills”. Formatting this one took forever, because getting it just right was so difficult. I love this piece, but I’d appreciate feedback on it, particularly if there’s anything that doesn’t work; it’s different from my usual style. Thanks to cerieblue819 for feeding the bunny, leaper182 for being a sounding board despite how I presented this one to her, professorohki for helping me with the coding, and the ever-wonderful amazonqueenkate for not letting me end it on a subpar note, providing me with coffee, and putting up with my general insecurity over this.
He’s afraid, come Monday morning, that Wilson may kill him.
Julie informed him she was telling her husband, as though warning him, and Robert couldn’t find a good way to object, not with her sweet perfume mixing with sweat and sex on his sheets, Julie’s dark curls tumbling down around her and spilling across her breasts. He wondered how Wilson didn’t realize Julie had been carrying on an affair, but then recalled Julie’s complaints of feeling alone, neglected.
Sunday dawns clear and cold, and Chase has to force himself outside for a run, fortified only by a mug of hot, strong, sweet tea; he can eat when he gets back.
They’d met in a quiet bar, upscale, the kind Robert went to when he wanted to be alone in a crowd. He’d deliberated long and hard before ordering, deciding a single glass of brandy wouldn’t hurt. It was rich and smooth, well worth the price, and burned just right going down.
By the second mile, the cold air searing his lungs, Chase turns back toward his apartment. It’s not yet eight; during the hours before he’s to meet Julie for lunch and a Talk, he’ll figure out what he wants to say.
He’d noticed Julie when he walked in; how could he do otherwise? She wasn’t much taller than Cameron, perhaps a hundred and seventy centimeters, but she wore her heartbreak as a protective coat, countering the signals given off by the fitted black jacket, the tailored tan slacks, the strappy black heels. She wore her long hair up, and her makeup smudged around her eyes.
Chase considers a fast shower, but decides against it, filling the bathtub instead, as hot as he can stand, while he makes breakfast: turkey sausage, wheat toast with jam, more tea. Coffee is for days he has to work.
She had approached him, a surprise given how distressed she’d seemed. Robert, remembering the manners instilled in him as a small boy, invited her to sit, giving only his first name, as much as she offered.
More than half an hour in the water, and Chase is utterly relaxed, the chill leached from his bones and any potential soreness averted. He tucks a towel around his waist and returns to his bedroom to dress, where he imagines he can still smell Julie’s perfume.
Robert’s carefully maintained reserve let him listen to Julie’s story of a neglectful, absent husband, and its familiarity started a slow-churning anger within him. By her account, her marriage was all but over. She was, she said, tired, of being alone, of being forgotten, of just being instead of living the life her dreams promised.
Lunch won’t be extravagant, sandwiches or salad at a middle-class deli Chase has come to like. But they need to figure out what they’re going to do, whether they’ll keep seeing each other or not.
Julie hadn’t mentioned her husband’s name, instead calling him “he”, the heavy emphasis coming across as exhausted and longing, not spiteful or hating. Robert hadn’t asked her to come home with him that night; one-night stands made him nervous, and he didn’t like that she was still married. Instead, they arranged to meet the next night at the same bar, Julie saying shortly that her husband wouldn’t miss her, and Robert had caught himself wondering how anyone could neglect such a woman.
He realizes he still doesn’t know if Wilson knows who Julie’s affair has been with.
The second evening, they had left the bar before Chase ordered his drink, but not for his apartment. Instead, he’d taken her to a diner and ordered a sandwich and tea to Julie’s slice of chocolate silk pie and cup of coffee, and Robert listens to the beautiful, tragic woman’s story of her marriage.
Chase finds a novel to read, a Dean Koontz thriller he’s fond of, and settles into his chair with it. Sundays are his day, a promise he made to himself when he left seminary, and one he’s managed to keep aside from med school and his residency. But his mind keeps returning to Julie, pretty Julie who lights up for him, who makes him feel needed.
By the third night, Robert hadn’t cared who her husband was. She was smiling now, and it brought her face to life. Leaving the diner, she’d whispered to him, “You make me feel alive,” and Robert had stumbled over his words to invite her back to his apartment, stupidly grateful this was Friday.
Two hours later, the book has lost its appeal; his mind is firmly focused on lunch with Julie. Is she keeping the house? Does she want to live together? Questions fall like leaves through his mind, until only one is left, the branch that looms constant.
Four months after they met, Julie had confided, “I love you, Rob,” and nothing has made him feel at once so small and terrible, and yet so mighty and wanted.
Does she still?
Two and a half months after Julie’s declaration, Robert had worked up the nerve to ask who her husband was. His logic was simple: he needed to know if arranging to flee to Spain would be necessary to escape the wrath of the ghost lurking in the corner. Her distant answer-“James Wilson, maybe you know him, he’s an oncologist”-had rendered that plan moot. House would be able to find him anywhere, and Robert had wished he’d never asked.
It’s nearly eleven-thirty; Chase folds over the corner of the page in his forgotten hardcover and sets it on his coffee table. Standing, he stretches and pads into his room to find a pair of shoes. At least soon he’ll know if his life is in imminent danger from a cane-wielding maniac and his tank-driving best friend.
More importantly, he’ll know if he still has Julie, or if she’s leaving him, too.