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“You have a patient,” some unfamiliar male voice said as Chase wound his way to the front of Princeton-Plainsboro.
“I just quit,” announced Chase. “Give 'em to Taub, or to House or to anyone but me.”
“I didn't come here for Dr. Taub or Dr. House. I'm here for Dr. Robert Chase,” insisted the man.
“Look, I'm flattered but I'm on my way out,” Chase reiterated as he punched the button for the elevator.
“Are you sure about that?” The condescension in the words, so like everyone else he wanted to get away from, finally got Chase to turn around and glare at the man.
Chase took a moment to look the man up and down. He was older middle-aged, greying hair, trimmed beard. Chase didn't see any muscle contractions, shaking, visible wounds, nor tissue discoloration. He didn't appear to be in pain or obvious discomfort. “Are you bleeding from any orifices? Have any trouble breathing?” Chase didn't wait for an answer. “Clearly you can stand up and move. Therefore, not an emergency, therefore, I'm going home.”
The doors to the elevator opened and Chase stepped in. The bearded man, clearly unwilling to accept 'no’, followed him. Chase decided against picking a floor, leaning against the back wall. The other man seemed content to wait as well, standing still, his hands folded in front of him. Chase banged his head against the wall once. “I thought you were in need of urgent medical attention,” he muttered.
“No,” said the man. “I'm not in any particular hurry. You seem to be, though, for someone who has worked here, what, ten years?”
Chase's eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I don't owe you an explanation. I'm sorry if you've come a long way or something, but as I've already explained...wait, how did you know I've been here ten years?”
The man waved a hand dismissively. “Public information. I do know other information, though. I know that what happened today with Dr. Treiber is far from your worst day. I know that you're tired and you're angry, but that mostly you're afraid.”
Chase crossed the elevator car in a couple of long strides. His eyes darted between the panel of buttons and the ranting stranger.
“Wouldn't you like to do something about that? Have any regrets, Dr. Chase? Any days where you wish you'd gotten a second chance?”
Chase's hand hovered over the emergency call button.
The man sighed. Chase seemed to be boring him. Unbelievable. “Go ahead and press it if you like, fetch security, or just order me out of the elevator. Of course, if you do, you'll never know what I was offering.”
Chase's hand slid up and over to jab the button for the ground floor. “What are you offering?”
“Answer my question first.”
“Which one?”
“Robert Chase, do you have regrets?”
“Of course I have regrets! Everyone does. And I'm a doctor. My mistakes mean people die!” Chase didn't like the way this guy was getting to him.
Or the way the other man’s response was calm and measured: “Did anyone die today?”
“No.”
“Then I repeat, you seem to be in awful hurry.”
The door dinged open. Chase stepped into the lobby. “You’re right.”
“Why?”
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I'm a therapist.” He handed Chase a business card as he brushed past him.
Chase read it aloud: “Dr. Tom, the only therapy you’ll ever need. Results guaranteed.” Chase followed him out of the building. “Arrogant bastard aren't you?”
Tom spun to face him, retreating backward into the dark with a large grin. “I’ve gotten that one before. See you soon.”
“How do you know I'm coming?” Chase called after him.
“You don't have a job anymore, remember? No wife, no kids. What else is there to do?”
Chase raced through the parking lot, intent on catching up with the man to do who knows what, but he’d disappeared into thin air.
Chase stuffed the card in his pocket. He headed home, and he got up the next morning. He filled out applications, he interviewed, he heard offers he had no intention of accepting. He met women whose offers he did accept. He tried to tell himself that his days and nights were full.
That lie collapsed as he slipped away from his latest lingerie-clad distraction and into a starless night, wandering without purpose along New Jersey streets. A strong gust of wind made Chase draw his jacket tighter around himself, and his fingers brushed the business card in his pocket. He pulled it out to discover the office sat across the street. After a minute’s debate, he sprinted across the street, and into the nondescript building.
The door opened to reveal a secretary behind a desk and a long staircase. “Can I help you?” the woman asked Chase.
“I'm, uh, hoping to leave a message for Doctor Tom,” Chase said.
She smiled brightly. “Doctor Tom's between patients at the moment, you can go right up.”
“Thanks,” Chase said and shook himself as he started up the long staircase.
At the top he stumbled into an austere office. Gleaming high-polished wood, shelves full of books, a large, imposing desk. Tom stood in front of the desk, hands folded behind his back as though he'd been waiting for Chase.
“Robert, you made it. Or would you prefer Chase?”
“Chase is fine. It's past midnight,” comments Chase.
Tom nodded. “And before dawn. Your point?”
“Were you waiting for me?”
Tom laughed. “Right, because no doctor could keep strange hours unless they were waiting up for you. I couldn't possibly have had another patient or other business.”
Chase stared at him.
“Well?” Tom asked.
“Well what?”
“I take you didn't come all this way to check on my office hours, so why are you here?”
“I, uh, wanted to discuss your offer.” Chase twirled the business card between his fingers. “I might be interested.”
“Might is such a weak word.” The contemptuous look Tom shot Chase was so very similar to House’s that Chase nearly laughed. “A discussion is an exchange of knowledge, Robert Quillen. What do you know?”
Chase glanced down. The piece of cardstock spinning around his fingers was blank. “This used to be a business card. Your card.”
“You don't need it anymore, you’ve found me.”
“Are you some kind of magician?”
“No, focus. In fact, have a seat.”
Chase pulled up the chair on this side of the desk and sank into it. “Okay. I also know you can't guarantee results. No one in medicine can do that.”
“I can. Whatever it is that you’re unhappy about, I can fix it. All I ask from you is that you make a commitment. If you're willing to commit to therapy, put in the time, you will be better. Once you know the illness, you know whether or not you can treat it, as long as your patient takes their prescription.”
“And you know what I have already? After meeting me for five minutes, how did you diagnose me exactly?”
“Diagnostic prowess surprises you, really? Besides, I asked you. You said you have regrets.”
“Regretful isn't a diagnosis,” snapped Chase.
“It's the only one I care about.”
“How does this work exactly? What methods do you use?” Chase's gaze swept the room, but the office only suggested Tom was somewhat old-fashioned and well-read.
“My strategy is unconventional.”
“So...drugs?”
“No! Not that kind of unconventional. Look, I'm not here to play twenty questions. Either you're ready or you're not. If you want to test my claim, you'll have to play by my rules. So, what do you say?”
“I have to decide now?”
“Yes,” came Tom’s quick reply.
That threw Chase. He’d only meant to ask questions, poke around. For all he knew this guy was delusional, or a serial killer. Yet, Tom had been right; it wasn't as though had much left to lose.
“So much for informed consent,” sighed Chase. “I'm in.”
“To see this through to the end?” Tom clarified. “I don't treat anyone who's willing to give up.”
“Despite the day we met, I don't quit easily.” Determination steeled Chase's features. “I want your help.”
“Good.” Tom handed over a pen.
“Here come the forms.”
“Not forms. A list. Your regrets in short form.” Tom took up pacing in front of his desk. “Every sideways day. Every bad call. Nothing is too big or too small to include in the process, if it still bothers you.”
Tom watched as Chase made his list, skimming it each time Chase set it down and picked it up again: Leaving Jennifer, Divorce Papers, Last Drink with Dad, Mason Baby, Dictator... Unlike some of his other patients, it took prodding to get Chase to be thorough. “It needs to be exhaustive. Don't hold back. This is one time you won’t get a do over.”
Chase nodded and closed his eyes, concentrating, then added several more items before sliding it to Tom.
Satisfied, Tom handed it back again. “Now put a star next to anything to do with patients.”
Chase complied, with another slightly suspicious glance. Tom accepted the paper and tapped an entry about a third of the way down. “Tell me about groundskeeper’s wife.”
“I slept with her.”
“Do you regret everyone you sleep with? Because that issue would require an entirely different kind of therapy to treat.”
“No,” Chase recoiled, his face scrunching toward his nose. “I regret that she was married.”
“Because?”
“Shouldn’t everyone?”
“I can tell you everyone wouldn’t, and I would point out that I’m far less concerned with whether your regrets are valid. Why do you, Robert Chase, regret sleeping with that woman on that day?”
“Because it was stupid. Because it got me in trouble?”
“Maybe you should go,” suggested Tom.
“What? I just agreed.”
“I know, but I asked for your biggest regrets and you can't even tell me why something made the list. We’re not really off the best of starts here, so thank you. Good night and good luck, Edward R Murrow.”
Chase stepped toward the door, but stopped short, pivoting back. “I don't even remember her name. And before you ask, yes I’ve forgotten the names of other women I’ve slept with, but those women weren't responsible for my leaving seminary school, starting an entirely new career, a new life. It should have mattered more.”
“Tell me, if you could go back to that day and do it over, what would you do differently?”
“I'd quit seminary the way I should have. By being honest with someone about my doubts, without needing to have sex to resolve them.”
Tom stared at him intensely. “Is it just me or was it warmer when I came up?” Chase asked, shivering.
“No, but Chase, you might want to try harder to remember her name.”
“Why?”
“You’ll find out,” he said, just before Chase blinked away.
Tom winced as Chase stumbled directly into the one person he didn't want to see, and dropped the lunch tray he'd been carrying across the lawn and the woman.
“Robert,” she admonished, her soft voice layered with both shock and fondness as she bent to pick up a discarded napkin and blot at the front of her dress.
Chase moved to get at the mess, and immediately froze mid motion as she whispered something in his ear.
“Sofia!” squawked Chase. From the woman's nod, Tom surmised he'd gotten her name right after all.
Tom stayed just long enough to see Sofia bat her eyelashes at the younger man before he decided he'd seen enough.
He waited more than a full day to check in this time; besides the obvious, Tom doubted there was much trouble Chase could get into ensconced in a seminary school.
Meanwhile, Chase padded through the dark halls, wondering what had happened to drop him halfway across the world in what everyone swore was the last century, and where that Dr. Tom had gotten to.
As soon as they crossed paths, Chase began to apologize, “Forgive me, Father, I-”
“Didn't mean to be out of bed, but you find it hard to sleep when you think you're going out of your mind?” suggested Tom.
“It's you,” Chase snarled, before hauling Tom by the elbow into a dark, secluded corner. “I thought you said no drugs. What am I on, some kind of mushroom, lysergic acid diethylamide or Methylenedioxymethamphetamine?”
“First, abbreviate like anyone else. Second, I haven't drugged you. This isn't some kind of trip.”
“Is this some kind of super-dedicated reenactment? Like a Renaissance fair, or historical village?”
“Uh-huh, because people are just lining up to play English priests and adulterous wives,” depanned Tom.
“They might be,” defended Chase weakly.
“Everything you see, feel, and hear here as real as when you went through it the first time.”
“Then how am I here?”
“Time travel.”
Chase laughed, a mirthless puff of noise. “You can't be serious.”
“You wanted a second chance. Go enjoy shot at the priesthood round two. Break up with your Lord and Savior the way you meant to.”
“Time travel doesn't exist,” Chase fired back.
Tom rocked and back and forth on his heels. “All right fine, if you don't want to believe me, differentially diagnose yourself.”
“Besides drugs,” that earned Chase a glare, “there's dissociative fugue.”
“How long would you retain both identities in a fugue, and would you remember me in both places?”
Chase shook his head, and tried again. “I could be vividly dreaming, or dangerously low on oxygen, or dying, people have all sorts of hallucinations as they die.”
“Such cheery possibilities, or there's time travel. Feel free to not believe me, makes my job easier. See you in a few more days. I'm sure you'll figure everything out.” Tom rounded the corner and left.
He still kept tabs on Chase; it would be grossly irresponsible not to. Tom discovered Chase did find someone to confide in, and turned down sex with Sofia but they end up being found together anyway, this time in the middle of a heated argument.
The universe, Tom thought not for the first time, liked to reassert itself. He pulled Chase out of the regret shortly after he and Sofia were hauled apart and dumped him into his own bed in his apartment in New Jersey.
Several days after that, Tom bumped into Chase at the corner where his office had been.
“Your office is gone,” Chase said.
“I don't routinely keep an office, too confining.”
A pause followed and Chase broke it with the first thing that came to mind. “You remind me of someone.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“A little of both,” Chase admitted, then added, “I've been looking for you.”
“I know.” Of course he did.
“And...I believe you about the time travel.”
“Why now?”
“It's like Pascal's wager for believing in God. If I agree and you're right, I have the most to gain.”
Tom smiled at that. “I'm glad you see it that way. I don't have any more time to chat, but our next session will begin soon.”
“How will I find you?” Chase asked, as Tom started down the street.
“I’ll be in touch.”
Several weeks and a half dozen regrets later, Chase burst into Tom’s office and slumped into a chair. “Is this a good time?”
“What it matter if it wasn't? What's on your mind?”
“Do you always answer questions with a question?”
“No.” Tom returned to his book as though the conversation had come to an end.
Chase snorted out a laugh. “Why no patients? So far you've sent me back to my mom, my dad, my sister, even Sofia wife of the groundskeeper. I'm not ungrateful, I promise, but, I could do some real good there.”
“Because you've done nothing so far.”
“Yes, no, just nothing on the scale of saving lives or preventing suffering. Almost everyone we did a differential for underwent tests they would not have needed if I'd known the answer ahead of time.”
“Right, and I'm sure you remember every last one.”
Chase shrugged. “Alright, specific example, I could have saved Foreman from a dangerous brain biopsy if I'd known about the Naegleria Fowleri.”
“Did you do the biopsy?”
“No. Dr. Cameron did.”
“Then I'm sure if she gets this opportunity it will make her list.”
“I'm only allowed to regret things I'm personally responsible for?”
“Yes. This process is about your choices. Your life.” Tom set his book aside with a thud. “Let's say I agreed with you, let you go back to stop the biopsy. Where does indirect responsibility end? Are you responsible for all the decisions on the diagnostic team?”
“If I was there,” agreed Chase. “I could prevent harm. That's my duty as a doctor.”
“Just their medical decisions or issues in their personal lives too?”
“Well...”
“For that matter, what makes the patients of Princeton-Plainsboro so special? If you're right then we should be using time travel on all patients in every hospital, and why stop there? Maybe you can stop an assassination, or prevent a few wars; wars do an awful lot of harm, don't they?”
“Wars are more complicated than diagnoses,” countered Chase, “a disease has a handful of moving parts, and a narrow scope of causes.”
“This process isn't about saving lives or sweeping changes. Therapy is about understanding your choices.”
“I know. I’ve heard. Just give me one.”
“Which one?”
“Mikey Mason.”
Tom went silent and fixed Chase with a stare. Chase prepared for the feeling of travel. Nothing happened.
“No,” declared Tom definitively.
“What the hell good is time travel if I killed a baby with a simple gluten allergy?! That's my regret, mine alone. It could have been his mother's but she decided to go and die!”
Chase stormed toward the door, only to be stopped by a doorknob question. “So, you don't want to tell me about Kayla?”
“Kayla?” Chase couldn't hide his surprise, as he made his way back to the chair. “You just said no patients.”
“No, you assumed that I wasn't going to let you go on any regrets regarding patients. Now, Kayla.”
“She came in the clinic, and we bonded during her pelvic exam. Wait, that sounds awful. It wasn't anything like that. We talked about my mom.”
Tom cleared his throat.
“Right, anyway, I diagnosed her with Behcet’s, prescribed Prednisone. She happened to find me when she came in, for her tests results. I confirmed the Behcet’s, but I was distracted. I didn't ask routine follow up questions about her stomach pain that would have let me know she had ulcers. One perforated, and ultimately she needed a new liver, which she got from her brother, who had liver cancer.”
“So what would you do differently?”
“I’d ask the questions. I’d recommend she be checked for ulcers, suggest she cut back on the ibuprofen.”
Tom nodded. “It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom, Gandhi.”
“Does that mean I can?”
“You’re the one who has all the answers today, do what you want.”
“Wait,” said Chase, but either he was unheard or ignored, as he found himself staring down at redness and pustules.
“Wait for what? Doctor?” Kayla said. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no. It’s positive, definitely Behcet’s, make sure to talk to the nurse and get an appointment in Rheumatology.”
“I took that medicine you gave me, but my stomach still hurts.”
“Well, it could be acid reflux, or it could be something more serious. Let's get an exam room.” Chase walked her the short distance to the room and took a listen to her stomach, while trying to remember where the ulcers were.
“Noticing any blood when you use the toilet?”
“Maybe?” She chewed her lip. “It’s a bit darker than usual.”
“Any diarrhea?”
She shook her head.
“Let's get your blood pressure.” As he slipped the cuff on, he asked, “Are you taking anything except what I gave you?”
“No.”
He wrote down the figure, needlessly. “Nothing at all for the pain?” he pressed.
“Just a couple of Advil.”
“You shouldn't take medicine like Advil with your condition. Ibuprofen makes ulcers worse.”
“I didn't know.”
“I should have said. Let's go get a good look at your stomach, see if we can see what's going on.”
A location swap, a short argument about why he needed the room, prep and scope later, he’d cauterized the ulcers until they turned brown.
“Not perforated, good,” he said mostly to himself. No holes, no sepsis, no liver failure, no cancer, he added mentally. “You’re going to be alright, Kayla.”
“What if I told you she wasn't?” Tom’s voice cut through the fog as Chase returned to the present. “What if she overdid it on Tylenol and ended up with liver failure anyway? Or what if because she happened to stay later at the clinic that afternoon she got into a car accident on her way home? What if saving her life meant she never got to save her brother?”
“I never told you about—” Chase started.
“Because you didn't think it through,” Tom said. “Still want to do it your way?”
Chase’s gaze dropped to the floor. “No.”
“Good.” Tom gave him a curt nod.
“You’re not angry?”
“The things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, Aristotle. All of my new clients try to ignore the rules at some point. In this regard, you're not special.”
“Why does that make me feel better?” Chase asked.
“Think about it, and next time you tell me.”
“Are you going to let me in on the rest of the rules now, or do I only find them out when I run up against one?”
“When else do you need a rule? For now, go home, get some rest. We’ll pick this up in a few days. We have a lot of work left, you and me.”
Chase nodded, and stepped through the door.