Archive of Our Own

If he could do it all over again, Chase would still have become a doctor. He didn’t let himself think about parallel lives where he’d been a priest (tried that, didn’t work), or something random like an accountant (not as fulfilling) or an artist (though surgery could be considered an artform, and so could diagnostics). He didn’t see a point in letting his mind wander like that. He couldn’t change the past, he could only deal with the fallout.

Although he could have chosen a location with a nicer climate. How he could move from a place called “Gold Coast” to somewhere like Princeton was beyond belief. New Jersey was drab in the winter. There was no doubt the state had its charms, like Wawa, the Devils, and the near-death experience that occurred whenever he got on Route 1. But the weather was unfortunate, and he might have been better off in Miami or Los Angeles.

Then again, regardless of where he lived, his parents would still be dead and his sister would still be a drunk, and who’s to say another dictator wouldn’t have popped up at whatever hospital he worked at?

And he didn’t move to Princeton by chance. He moved here for House, whatever that even meant these days.

As he combed his hair in the mirror that morning, he briefly thought of his old boss. He paused to acknowledge the thought, then let it go. That was a technique he’d been working on. Instead of wallowing in pity, he was supposed to acknowledge the thought and move on. Acknowledge, move on. It wasn’t easy. He was trying.

He finished tying his tie, grabbed his briefcase, and got into his car.

One more near-death incident later on, thanks to someone who didn’t use their signal and called Chase a “fucking asshole” when he nearly crashed into him, and he’d arrived at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

Foreman greeted him at the door. No chance of escape.

“You’re not backing out.”

“Good morning to you too,” Chase grumbled. He kept walking.

Foreman sped up to walk next to Chase.

“Did you hear me?”

“I’m not backing out,” Chase didn’t spare him a glance. “Why would I do that?”

“Because last year you said, ‘I’m never doing that again. I’m backing out next time.’ Sound familiar?”

Chase paused. He was pretty sure those were his exact words.

“It was a moment of anger.”

“Anger, or embarrassment?”

“Not relevant,” Chase pulled his winter jacket tighter around his body, even though he was inside. “Unless you finished a residency in psychiatry when I wasn’t looking.”

“Look,” Foreman’s voice softened a bit. “It was your first try. Nobody is perfect on their first try-”

“I know that-”

“And you had some big shoes to fill.” Foreman paused, then reconsidered. “Well, you know what I-”

“I know what you mean,” Chase let it go.

“And this is a teaching hospital-”

“And I’m ready to teach,” Chase insisted. “I said I was doing it. And forget about the last lecture,” he started to walk again, Foreman at his side. “I’ve prepared something better this time. More engaging.”

Both men stepped into the elevator. Chase hit the button for his floor, and the doors closed.

“Engaging?” Foreman pressed. “Should I be worried?”

Chase suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.

“About what, a lawsuit? Do you think I’m going to strip naked?”

“I would hope not.”

“Then don’t worry, because that’s not in the plan. Although if the kids get too bored-”

“They’re all fourth year medical students, they’re not kids.”

“-I can’t promise anything.”

Even though Chase was joking, he could still sense a deep-seated anxiety in Foreman. While he knew that Foreman enjoyed his job, he also knew Foreman’s predecessor had constantly worried about lawsuits resulting from Chase’s own mentor. Former mentor. Whatever. He wouldn’t be surprised if Cuddy’s own fears had been, probably justifiably, imparted onto Foreman.

“Look,” Chase sighed, showing his friend some mercy. “I promise I will not: reveal any personal information about the patient, violate any HIPPA statute, portray the hospital in a negative light, and/or commit any other slight you could think of. Does that put your mind at ease?”

“Hmm,” Foreman considered. “Not really.”

The elevator doors opened.

“Then you should come watch. You can stop me if it gets too…litigious.”

“I’ll be there.”

Chase stepped out, and the doors closed.

When he opened the door to his office, Park and Adams were already sitting inside. It appeared they were deep in conversation when he arrived, and when they saw him, they both stopped talking.

Chase paused in the doorway, both of his fellows staring at him.

“Something on my face?”

“No,” Park answered quickly. “We weren’t talking about you.”

“I didn’t say you were,” Chase stepped into the room, hanging up his jacket and setting his briefcase on his desk.

His desk. Nobody else’s. After House left, died, Chase tried to use his boss’ desk, but he compared the experience to wearing a shirt that didn’t fit right. Chase thought it might be disrespectful to buy a new one, but eventually, his shrink convinced him that it was just a desk, and he wouldn’t be upsetting House in the afterlife if he got rid of it. Chase had that fear about a lot of the objects in that office, and he even considered requesting a new office altogether, but that seemed weak somehow. He eventually made a compromise where he got new furniture, but kept the bloodstain on the carpet and House’s mysterious fuzzy tennis ball on his desk. It helped him think sometimes.

“Are you ready for your lecture?” Park asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be ready?”

“The last one was pretty bad.”

“Gee, thanks,” Chase pulled a newspaper out of his briefcase.

“Park,” Adams shook her head.

“What? He already knows it was bad, I’m not saying anything new.”

“We all know it was bad,” Adams agreed, the traitor. “But still, there’s a time and a place.”

“It wasn’t bad,” Chase unfolded a section of the newspaper on his desk. “It was just a little boring. I should have realized nobody would be interested in the different presentations of atypical gastrointestinal pain.”

“It rolls off the tongue,” Adams pulled up a chair.

“Why is this one going to be better?” Park asked as she pulled up a chair as well.

“Because,” Chase picked up a pen, which he twirled in his fingers, “I’m taking a different approach. A narrative. A story. A recent Academy Awards Best Picture winner, four letters across. Any takers?”

“I didn’t watch it,” Park shook her head.

“The movie?”

“No, the Academy Awards.”

“I didn’t watch it either,” Adams frowned. “It’s a waste of time.”

“Because it’s beneath you?” Park asked.

“No. When have I ever said that something is beneath me? I don’t know why you guys are always on about that. I was probably here working a case.”

Park shared a glance with Chase. It was a sign of acknowledgement that Adams did usually think of things as being beneath her. It might seem rude to do that in front of Adams, but Adams and Chase did the same thing when Park was being a little too awkward, and Chase was sure Adams and Park did the same whenever his issues arose regarding…a long list of things. It was a consensual triangle of mockery.

“I guess we’ll move on,” Chase clicked his pen. “How about-”

“Argo,” Park gave an answer.

“That seems right,” Chase gave her the pen. “Do the honors.”

“Thanks,” she lit up as she carefully took the pen in her hand. Getting to write the answer was a special privilege, and Chase only bestowed the pen when someone had made a correct guess after everyone admitted to not knowing it. He felt that it encouraged humility, something his team badly needed.

“Alright, moving on,” Chase kept going when she’d finished. “Name for a Great Lake, four letters across.”

“Well, that’s easy,” Adams had it. “Erie.”

“I didn’t know it,” Chase wrote the answer.

“We learned it in elementary school,” Park explained.

“I guess the Australian government didn’t put American lakes in our curriculum.”

When they had systematically made it through the crossword, only leaving two answers blank, Chase picked up the newspaper, folded it up, and tossed it across the room and into the recycling bin.

“Good job, everyone. That’s better than yesterday’s.”

He stood up from his desk.

“Are you leaving for your lecture?” Park asked.

“We’re all leaving. I asked Foreman to give you guys a day off from your clinic hours, unless you’d rather go do that.”

Park quickly shook her head, while Adams hesitated.

“Well-”

“Nobody’s going to die because you’re missing a few hours of clinic duty. The poor will survive without you for the morning.”

She frowned.

“Besides, I’d like you both to be there for the story. You’re both main characters. The audience might even applaud you at the end.”

“Oh!” Adams was flattered by this. “Really? Which case is it?”

Chase set his briefcase on his desk, cracked it open, and slipped out a manila envelope, handing it to Adams.

“Let’s see,” she opened the cover. “Wow,” she hesitated. “This one?”

“Let me see,” Park stood on her tiptoes, trying to read over Adams' shoulder. “Hmm,” she read the first page. “No, this was one of our most complicated cases last year. I think it makes sense to choose this one, from a medical standpoint.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Chase took the folder back, put it in his briefcase, and closed it. “Even though I had to change a few details so Foreman wouldn’t lose his mind. Here,” he pulled a stack of index cards out of his suit pocket and handed it to Park. “Hold onto these.”

“Alright,” Park took them. “I won’t ask what these are.”

Privately, he was relieved she had given him approval. He was a bit nervous about the case presentation. He was worried it might reveal something. About who or what he wasn’t sure, but he felt like he was peeling back a layer somehow.

He walked with his team down to one of the hospital auditoriums. Foreman was waiting outside.

“Making sure I don’t flee at the last moment?” Chase asked. “You should've issued a lockdown order.”

“Well, I can see that I have nothing to worry about,” Foreman crossed his arms. “Hello, Park. Adams.” He acknowledged Chase’s fellows.

“Foreman,” Park greeted him back. “Thank you for letting us take off from clinic this morning.”

“I never said that.”

“Oh,” Park glanced nervously at Chase, realizing that she just ratted him out. “Um, I mean-”

“Enough chit chat,” Chase prevented any further conversation from happening. “Let’s get on with it.”

“Let me see your notes.”

“Why do you think I’m so intent on derailing this lecture?” Chase sighed. He reached into his suit pocket and handed a stack of index cards to Foreman, who quickly sifted through them.

“Let’s see,” he examined a card, “unexplained respiratory failure in the youth population.”

“See? It’s exactly what I said it would be.”

“Alright,” Foreman agreed, and handed back the cards. “Clearly I underestimated you. I’ll go sit down.”

“Thank you.”

Foreman opened the door and stepped into the auditorium, leaving Chase and his fellows behind.

Chase threw the index cards into the nearest garbage can.

“Park, I’ll take those cards back now.”

“What are you doing?” She asked as she handed him the cards that he had given her earlier.

“I want these students to learn something they wouldn’t hear in a classroom,” he put the cards in his own pocket.

“So you lied to Foreman about your lecture topic?” Adams asked.

“Right.”

“Well,” she was about to scold him, then paused. “Well, I guess it’s not my business.”

“You both have my permission to feign ignorance if he asks whether you knew. I’d suggest finding good seats.”

Chase opened the door of the auditorium and stepped inside.

As he walked up to the stage, he was under no illusion that House wouldn’t act like this. In fact, Chase was sure he’d seen his old boss lie about a number of lecture topics before switching it up at the last minute. This was something House would do.

He acknowledged the thought, and let it go.

Chase walked up the steps that led to the stage. He looked out at the audience. They were mostly medical students, though a few residents playing hooky had also made an appearance. Chase had sat in those very seats ten years ago, watching House where he stood now. This lecture was supposed to be given by the Head of Diagnostic Medicine, but since House had dominated the department for so long, it had been colloquially referred to as the “House Lecture.” Chase was sure some of the students had been hoping to see House on stage since their first year, and combined with Chase’s less than stellar performance last year, he wondered if some of them had decided to skip it this time.

No matter. He was about to outdo himself.

“Hello everyone,” Chase caught the room’s attention. “I’m Doctor Robert Chase, and I’m the head of Diagnostic Medicine here at Princeton-Plainsboro.”

Half of the students were looking at their phones.

“I’ll admit, my last lecture was a little dry, but I like to think I’ve improved this time.”

He noticed Foreman sitting in the back near the door, probably so he could make a quick exit if needed. His fellows were sitting closer to the front of the room.

“So today, I’m giving you a case study. This was an actual case my team had last year, and I think it shows the intricacies of reaching a proper diagnosis when you’re dealing with vague symptoms. I have no slideshow, no handouts, just me. I encourage you to take notes and I welcome audience participation.”

He purposely did not look at Forman, but he watched a few of the students whisper to each other.

“And there is no punishment for wrong answers. No idea is a bad idea when it comes to diagnostics.” He was lying, but for the sake of the lecture, it was alright.

“Now, put your phones away, and let’s begin.”

He pulled out an index card.

“The patient is a 12-year-old male who’s admitted to the emergency room with severe shortness of breath.”

He put down the index cards.

“Any thoughts?”

Everyone in the room stared blankly at him.

“This isn’t going to be fun if nobody participates,” he frowned, though he understood their trepidation. House had probably scarred enough med students for word to spread that you should never answer one of his questions. “What can cause shortness of breath in a twelve year old?”

Someone raised their hand in the middle.

“Yes?”

“Um, asthma?”

“Great idea,” Chase complimented the student. “The attending physician asks the parents if the patient has a history of asthma, and the parents state there is no known history of asthma. Any other ideas? Shout them out.”

Chase accurately predicted the anonymity would encourage more guessing.

“Bronchitis!”

“Bronchitis, another great guess!” Chase complimented. “I like that you guys are giving out common causes. Remember, think horses, not zebras. Unfortunately, this patient has no other respiratory symptoms and does not appear sick, so we can rule out bronchitis, or a cold, anything like that.”

“Strep throat?” Someone asked.

“Explain more.”

“It’s rampant in schools,” the volunteer explained. “In severe cases, it can cause shortness of breath.”

“Ah, I see we’re thinking of bacteria now,” Chase nodded. “Another great guess. Let’s check in with our emergency room attending.” Chase flipped to another index card. “She gives the patient oxygen, and his breathing and oxygen stats return to normal. She determines the boy had a panic attack and he’s ready to be discharged. But in a turn of events, the hospital holds him overnight. Why is that?”

………

“Foreman, are you serious?” Chase had caught him in the elevator. “Why are you admitting him to me? You shouldn’t even admit him overnight.”

“I think he needs to be admitted,” Foreman argued as the elevator moved upwards.

“The kid had a panic attack, he’s fine.”

“I think he needs to be observed over night. It’s my call.”

“Why am I observing him? Is his daddy a hospital donor?”

Foreman winced. Chase was on the right path.

“He is, isn’t he?” Chase scoffed.

“No,” Foreman argued. “He’s not, and if he were, that’s none of your business.”

“So what is it?”

A few more hospital employees had entered the elevator at this point, causing Chase and Foreman to conduct their argument in harsh whispers.

“His father’s a pediatrician, actually,” Foreman explained. “He’s insisting.”

“If he’s a doctor, he should know this is a waste of time.”

“Again, he’s insisting, and sometimes, when doctors don’t get what they want, they sue each other. Some of them have a lot of money.”

“So this is a PR move then? Why not keep him in the ER?”

“You don’t have any cases right now, and the ER is slammed.”

“And you don’t want to waste a bed down there?”

“Not in those exact words-”

“So you’re wasting one of mine.”

“Again,” Foreman stood in front of the doors. They had reached his floor. “You don’t have any cases, and the ER is overflowing.” He looked over at Chase and frowned. “Would it kill you to help out your colleagues and watch the kid overnight?”

“Fine, not like I have a say in it,” Chase grumbled.

“You’ll live.”

Foreman stepped out of the elevator, leaving Chase behind.

………

“Essentially,” Chase explained to the audience, “due to parental concerns, the hospital decided to hold him overnight. The parents argued that their son had never experienced a panic attack before, and out of an abundance of caution, they wanted us to watch him. We were happy to do so. Let’s talk a little more about the family. The boy has an older brother, who is sixteen, and a younger sister, who is ten. He was raised in an upper-middle class suburb of New Jersey. His father was a physician as well, and he had a stay at home mother. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary when I visited later that evening.”

………

“I don’t understand, why did Foreman admit him to us?” Park asked.

Chase was sitting at his desk, House’s desk, resting his head on his elbows.

“Charity case, and not the good kind. The kid’s father is some famous pediatrician. Foreman is doing him a favor.”

“But how is it a favor to hold him here without a medical reason?”

“It looks good on us.”

“Maybe he really is sick, though,” Adams argued. “And we don’t have any cases, so it’s not a big deal to watch over him.”

The fact that Adams had sided with Foreman only served to annoy Chase.

“But we shouldn’t help someone if they don’t need it,” Park argued.

“Why not? We’re doing something nice,” Adams responded.

Chase knew that an argument was about to break out. He buried his head even deeper into his arms in the hopes of drowning out the noise.

“But he doesn’t deserve it,” Park argued again.

“So nobody can ever do anything nice for anyone else?”

“Not if the reason behind the nice thing is to make you feel better about yourself.”

“What are you implying, that I just look out for myself?”

“Guys, please,” Chase’s patience was wearing thin. “Stop arguing, or do it outside, I can’t listen to it.”

Both of his fellows stopped talking, though Chase imagined they were glaring at each other. Eager to escape his office, Chase stood up from his chair.

“I’m going to the clinic.”

Chase had no fondness for clinic hours, but anything was better than sitting there.

When he spent enough time doing clinic hours that he felt adequately distracted from his fellows, he decided to check up on the patient he was supposed to be watching.

The boy was lying down in his hospital bed playing with a Nintendo 3DS. Both parents were deep in conversation, but looked up when Chase entered the room. The father immediately walked over and offered his hand.

“Hello, I’m Doctor Robert Chase,” Chase shook his hand, sizing him up.

“A pleasure,” the father smiled. “I’m Doctor Liam Kriska.”

Doctor Kriska was imposing, not physically, but in the way he carried himself. He seemed like someone who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Chase sensed why Foreman had been so nervous to deny him.

Then, the patient’s mother shook his hand as well.

“Monica,” she offered.

She did not have a hair out of place. Everything was perfectly constructed. Her clothes, makeup, and jewelry acted as a type of shield from public criticism. He wondered where she found the time, though like many mothers in certain New Jersey neighborhoods, specifically the ones where married doctors tended to live, she probably didn’t work.

Chase noticed the bracelet, the necklace, and the designer purse sitting on the chair. Money. Lot’s of it. Possible lawyer on retainer, or a sister or brother who went to Columbia and would represent the family for free. It was funny, sometimes, how rich families didn’t have to pay for certain things, even though they were the ones who could afford it. One of the perks.

The dual force of Liam’s thinly-concealed knowledge that he always got what he wanted and Monica’s confidence in the same principle made Chase feel uneasy, like they both looked down on him somehow.

Chase glanced at the chart attached to the window, trying to find the patient’s name.

“I’ll be Tommy’s attending physician,” Chase explained.

“We’ve heard great things about your department,” Liam smiled. “Such great things.”

“Thank you, I’m happy to hear that,” Chase checked the monitors by Tommy’s bed. If he were concerned about a medical anomaly, the feelings of Liam’s eyes boring into him as he took a few notes might unnerve him, but as expected, everything was in order. There was nothing that Liam could call him out on.

“And it’s a real shame, what happened with your old boss.”

“A real shame,” Chase echoed. “Of course.”

“Very tragic,” Monica added.

Chase was inclined to disagree. He reserved the word ‘tragic’ for kids who died in car crashes. House’s death wasn’t tragic. It was stupid, if anything.

“What happened?” A tiny voice called out from the bed.

“Nothing, Tommy,” his mother had sat back down, pressing her fingers to her temples.

“Hi, Tommy,” Chase smiled. “I’m Doctor Chase, I’ll be your doctor until you go home tomorrow, alright?”

“Tomorrow?”

“If everything goes according to plan,” Chase explained. “All of your vital signs are looking good.”

“Ok. Thank you.”

He was polite. Distracted with a video game. The kid was probably bored.

“Well, everything is looking alright over here,” Chase decided.

“I agree,” Liam added.

This was the problem with treating doctors’ kids. The parents liked to add their own opinions.

“Then, I think there’s nothing for me to do here, and I’ll be on my way.” Chase tried to seem agreeable, but as he shut the door behind him, a frown spread across his face.

These people were annoying, he could sense it. They didn’t do anything outright wrong, but he was glad they’d be leaving tomorrow.

Foreman caught Chase before he left that night. Chase was sitting in his office, having sent his fellows home so he could have some peace and quiet.

Foreman knocked on the glass door.

“What is it?” Chase called out.

Foreman opened the door.

“Hey,” he said simply.

“I checked up on the kid, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Yeah?” Foreman kept his distance from Chase. “How did that go?”

“Fine.”

“What triggered his panic attack?”

“Dunno,” Chase was spinning a pen on his fingers.

“Really.”

“Really.”

“You didn’t think to ask?”

“I didn’t think it was medically relevant.”

“Hmm.”

The two of them sat there in silence.

“Anything else I can do for you?” Chase asked.

“That’s not like you,” Foreman answered calmly.

“What?”

“No, just,” Foreman played it casually, “I would have thought you’d ask more questions, especially with a young patient.”

Chase couldn’t believe Foreman was pressing him on this.

“So now you’re questioning my medical judgment?”

“Take this,” Foreman pulled a business card out of his pocket and handed it to Chase.

“What’s this?” Chase read the card.

“Just someone I think you should reach out to.”

“Wha-” Chase read more of the card. “Are you sending me to a shrink?”

“A psychologist.”

“So a shrink. You want to see a shrink so I can tell her all about my feelings-”

“Him.”

Chase frowned.

“Male therapists are much less common. You went out of your way to find one?” He thought about the implication. “What, you think I’d sleep with my therapist if she were a woman?”

“I said nothing like that,” Foreman remained calm, having sensed that Chase would react negatively. “But I think the fact you thought of that on your own is proof enough you have a problem.”

“My sex life is none of your concern.”

“I never said it was,” Foreman stressed, “but I think some of your personal problems have started impacting your work, and that’s when I need to step in.”

“Because I didn’t follow up on a panic attack?”

“It’s a larger trend,” Foreman sighed. “And I know we haven’t really talked about House-”

“There’s nothing to talk about. He’s dead.”

“Just consider it, alright? Please, I think it would do you some good.”

Chase crumpled the business card, but still put it in his pocket.

“Fine,” he grit his teeth. “I’ll consider it, but don’t get your hopes up.”

………

“So,” Chase walked across the stage as he continued the story. “After I checked up on the patient, the rest of the night passed uneventfully, and he was sent home the next morning.” He looked out onto the audience. “Not a very good story, right? Panic attacks can be distressing for patients, but they aren’t physically dangerous. So why am I talking about this? Do I just love public speaking?”

That got a few chuckles out of the crowd.

“We worked on a few other cases and mostly forgot about the twelve-year-old boy. But next month, the ER encountered another patient, a ten-year-old girl with a severe rash and difficulty breathing. What kind of questions should we ask?”

“Allergies.”
“Allergic?”
“Does she have allergies?”

The crowd mumbled various versions of the question.

“Great idea. We ask the parents if she’s allergic to anything, and they say she’s allergic to animal dander, but she hasn’t been around any animals lately.”

“It could be a new allergy?” A student posited. “It’s not uncommon for a child to develop a spontaneous food allergy.”

“I like that. Any other ideas?”

“Maybe it’s not a new allergy, and she did come into contact with animal dander, but she doesn’t know it.”

“Both great possibilities. Let’s take a closer look at the symptoms. The rash has turned out to be hives spread up and down her arms, and on closer inspection, the difficulty breathing sounds just like wheezing. The ER doctor suspects an allergic reaction, and they administer benadryl, oxygen, and hold her overnight, sending her home the next morning. But then, things start to unravel.”

………

“I don’t like my new patient.”

Chase sat on a plush armchair across from his therapist.

“No?” Doctor Miller asked. “Why not?”

Chase wasn’t sure what possessed him to take Foreman up on his offer. Maybe it was because everything on earth had started to bother him more than usual, or Foreman kept insisting and Chase really wanted him to stop bringing it up.

During their first session, Chase made it clear that he wasn’t there to mope.

“Look,” he had told Doctor Miller during their first meeting. “Just so you’re aware, I’m completely fine.”

“I see.”

“My boss basically forced me to come here.”

“Why is that?”

“He thinks that some stuff that happened recently is impacting my work, personally I disagree, but it is what it is.”

“Hmm,” Doctor Miller looked at his notepad as he tried to get all that down. “And how would you say you’re coping with the…stuff?”

“Fine, I guess.” He paused. “Well, I mean, I guess- does sex count as coping?” He meant it as a joke, but Doctor Miller took him seriously.

“It certainly does,” Doctor Miller nodded slowly. “It may not be effective coping, however. But you seem to know that already.” He tapped his pen against his notepad. “What are you looking to get out of therapy?”

“I don’t really know. I just don’t want to sit here and complain about the past. I don’t want to rehash it all, I want to move forward.”

“While I’m inclined to believe that sometimes dissecting the past does help one to move forward, this is your hour and you can do what you want with it. Whatever you feel would be helpful. How about you tell me a little more about yourself? In the present tense, if you’d like.”

So all in all, Chase didn’t mind Doctor Miller too much. Today, the psychologist asked about his hesitancy towards treating this mysterious new patient.

“I had her brother a few weeks ago, and the parents were difficult.”

“How so?”

“The dad is a doctor, a pediatrician, and it feels like he’s breathing down my neck. And the mother, I don’t know, I can’t pin it. It’s hard with patients’ parents, sometimes. They don’t want to hear certain things.”

Doctor Miller’s eyes lit up, like he had the exact same experience with his own patients, but due to confidentiality, he couldn’t comment.

“I’m sure you know what I mean,” Chase acknowledged.

“I do.”

“And House would have dealt with them right away, he would have kicked them out of the room, he wouldn’t have cared.”

“Your old boss?”

“Yeah,” Chase nodded. “Sometimes I think he liked dealing with difficult parents, just so he had a chance to be aggressive.”

“Was he an aggressive person?”

“He was-” Chase paused to think. “Aggressive with himself, I think, and sometimes it spilt onto other people.”

“Did you like working for him?”

“He was a brilliant doctor.”

“Doesn’t mean he was a good boss,” Miller wrote something down. “But you were saying about your patient?”

………

“The patient, the ten-year-old girl, had another reaction a few hours after she went home. The parents rushed her back to the hospital, where she was admitted again. Faced with recurrent allergic reactions, she was admitted to my department, again due to parental concern. If that sounds familiar, it turns out this girl is the sister of the boy who had the panic attack.” Chase watched for a reaction from the audience. A few of them had started to write a little faster. “For those of you who are playing along at home, let’s call the boy ‘patient one’, and the girl ‘patient two.’”

By this point, Chase figured that if Foreman wanted to interrupt him, he would have done so. It was safe to proceed. At the very least, Chase was going to make this educational.

“So with that being said, why did the girl have another reaction? What’s the obvious question to ask?”

He paused, wondering if the word ‘obvious’ was too threatening, but he underestimated the arrogance and confidence of med students.

A student raised his hand.

“Yes?”

“Is there any way she came into contact with animal dander?”

………

“The parents are insisting she didn’t come into contact with anything,” Foreman was walking down the hallway.

“She must have,” Chase insisted. “There’s no way they can keep an eye on her all the time.”

“It happened right after she got home,” Foreman answered easily. “She had no time to find any stray dogs running around.”

………

“What about a biphasic reaction?” A student asked. Chase had decided to do away with calling on people and open up the floor.

“A biphasic reaction,” Chase repeated, “for anyone who doesn’t know, is a second anaphylactic reaction that occurs within 72 hours of the first one, from the same source.” He took the time to explain.

House never explained anything to medical students. If you didn’t get it, you were shit out of luck. It was a negative trait he had. Acknowledge, let go.

“I did consider this possibility.”

………

“What if it’s a biphasic reaction, shouldn’t they just hold her in the ER again?”

“That only happens with an anaphylactic reaction. The patient never went into shock, they just treated her with benadryl.”

“So she was exposed again, or she’s allergic to something else.”

“And you can watch her until they figure out what else she’s allergic to,” Foreman wasn’t hearing it. “Why are you so opposed? It’s not like you have another case.”

He was right. In the interim between Tommy and his sister, Chase and his team had treated a banker who woke up colorblind. It turned out he had Celiac Disease, which prevented him from absorbing Vitamin A, causing a deficiency that led to the color blindness. The team prescribed him a diet of eggs and fruit, told him to cut out the mid-day sandwiches, and sent him on his way.

Chase didn’t have a good excuse why he couldn’t watch over Tommy’s sister, other than he didn’t like the kid’s parents. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a valid medical reason.

“Just think it’s a waste of time,” Chase grumbled. “Just ‘cause his father is bossing you around…” He ducked out of the way of an oncoming nurse, who gave Chase and Foreman the side-eye for blocking the hallway.

“Which is why it would help me out if you would watch this girl. Go run an allergy test, I’m sure something will come up.”

“Alright, fine. I’ll keep an eye on her if it keeps Doctor what’s-his-name off your back.”

“Doctor Kriska?”

“Yeah, that one.”

Chase was more than fine sending one of his fellows to do the allergy panel. As he sat in his office, he let them decide who would do it.

“But we already know she’s allergic to dander,” Adams frowned. “Do we think she has another allergy?”

“I don’t know, do we?” Chase leaned back in his chair.

“I was just asking,” she rolled her eyes.

“I think she came into contact with animal dander when she went home. The patient’s father thinks she’s allergic to something else. Foreman thinks whatever the father tells him to think. So I guess it doesn’t matter what I think in the end.”

“So does that mean we should go run the allergy panel?” Park asked. “Or-”

“Why don’t the parents consult an allergist if they’re so worried?” Adams asked. “They can afford it.”

“Because Doctor Kriska insists,” Chase smiled. “And he can afford us, too. He’s heard good things about our department, so we all get to suffer for it.”

“I’ll do the panel,” Park volunteered, eager to escape the complaining.

“Sure,” Chase agreed. “Go ahead.”

“I’ll be at the clinic,” Adams left as well.

“Enjoy.”

………

“We ran the allergy panel,” Chase explained, “which means pricking the patient’s skin with miniscule samples of the allergen, and seeing if she has a reaction. But Patient Two only had a reaction to dander. This could mean one of two things. First, she really did come into contact with animal dander. Or second, someone shout it out.”

“The allergen isn’t on the panel?”

“Exactly. But when we ran- well, I’m stealing the credit. When my fellow, Doctor Park, ran the test,” Chase smiled, knowing she would be a little embarrassed that he called her out, “the results were clear. The only positive result came from dander.”

………

“I shouldn’t have let Doctor Park run that allergy panel,” Chase mused in Doctor Miller’s office later that day. “It wasn’t a good idea to send her.”

“Do you feel she didn’t do it correctly?” Doctor Miller probed.

“I’m sure she did it correctly, but I should have sent Adams to do it, or myself. Park is brilliant, but a bit…socially awkward. She’s sort of…weird, maybe off-putting. I feel like I threw her to the wolves with that family.”

“Explain a bit more,” Doctor Miller took a few notes.

“They’re an imposing couple. Intimidating. They’re not the type who are patient with socially awkward people. Park is not who they wanted to see conducting the allergy panel on their daughter.” Chase tried to explain. “They have a lot of money. Not regular money, family money. Adams has that. I should have sent her instead.”

“Do you think the parents looked down on Park?”

He thought back to earlier that day. Park had run the test and informed him of the results. She was standing in the doorway of his office. He was doing a crossword, pen in his mouth.

“It’s all negative, except for the dander.”

“Alright,” Chase wasn’t surprised. “Go let them know.”

She didn’t move.

“Well,” she hesitated, “they want you to deliver the results.”

“Why? It’s a simple allergy panel. You’re more than capable.”

“Sorry,” she apologized. “That’s what they said.”

Chase frowned. As predicted, they were being difficult.

“Alright,” he stood up from his chair.

It’s not like he was doing anything else. He had no idea how House killed time when his fellows were running around.

Chase took the file and walked over to the patient’s room.

What was her name? He looked at the cover of the report. Lucy. It was Lucy.

He opened the door. Lucy was lying in bed. She was the quintessential pretty blonde girl. The kind that people hated to see in hospitals. Ugly kids could suffer, but not young girls like Lucy.

Both of her parents were there. Chase imagined that Doctor Kriska must have his own practice, to take off work like this.

“Hello again,” he nodded to the parents.

“Doctor Chase,” Liam Kriska nodded back.

“Hi, Lucy,” Chase greeted the young patient, who was watching him with wide blue eyes. “How are you feeling?”

“Alright. Itchy.”

“That’s normal after your test.” He opened the file. “Based on these pictures, it looks like your skin only reacted to the animal dander, which means you’re not allergic to anything else-”

“So what caused the reaction?” Liam asked.

“Well, we’re not sure,” Chase was deeply irritated by the interruption, but hid it well. “It’s possible she has an uncommon allergy that isn’t on the panel, or she came into contact with animal dander. If there was anything on her clothes, it’s possible it re-triggered her allergy.”

That answer satisfied Liam, but his wife Monica spoke up.

“Doctor Chase, I was wondering,” she asked. “Could I speak with you for a moment outside?”

He anticipated some sort of complaint. On instinct, he looked over at Liam Kriska, who seemed unconcerned.

“Sure,” Chase agreed.

He stepped out of the room, holding the door open for Monica, who followed him into the hallway.

“Thank you,” she smiled as he let the door close.

“Of course, Mrs. Kriska.”

Upon closer inspection, she looked to be in her late forties, roughly ten years older than Chase. Her makeup was subtle- noticeable enough to look good, but not noticeable enough to make it seem like she was trying to appear younger. Standing next to her, Chase could detect hints of perfume, maybe vanilla, and her breath smelled like mint.

“How can I help you?” Chase asked.

The two of them slowly walked together, Monica’s heels softly clicking against the floor.

“I just wanted to thank you for looking after Lucy- I’m sure you have a lot going on. You must be awfully busy here.”

“Oh, it’s no problem at all,” Chase felt a pang of guilt for not checking in earlier when he had, quite literally, nothing else going on. “How is-” what was his name, what was his name- “Tommy?” Chase remembered.

“Much better,” she nodded slowly as they walked.

“Well, I’m happy to hear that.”

“And I wanted to say, my husband, well,” she paused. “Thank you for your patience, that is. I know he can be a little assertive.”

Chase wasn’t expecting to spot a fracture in their relationship this early in the game, but Monica had just exposed it herself.

“No, not at all,” Chase disagreed to be polite.

“And I just want to say that if he’s being a little intense, please, don’t hesitate to let me know,” she stopped walking. “I’m on your side. I know how hard you doctors work. I know you’re doing your best. We’ve heard great things about you, Doctor Chase.” She gave him a warm smile.

“Oh,” Chase suddenly felt a little embarrassed. “Thank you, Mrs. Kriska. That’s very kind of you.”

She pulled her phone out of her purse and checked the time.

“I have to go make dinner for Tommy and his brother,” she put the phone back. “I’ll see you, Doctor Chase.”

“Robert- it’s, uh, you can call me Robert.”

“Alright. Robert.” She gave him a final smile, then left.

Back in the present, Chase turned his attention to Doctor Miller.

“Sorry,” Chase shook his head. “What did you ask?”

“Did the patient’s parents look down on Park?”

“They wanted me to personally deliver the results instead of her,” he explained. “Like they didn’t trust her judgment. But the mother- she apologized on the father’s behalf later on, so I really don’t know. We’re keeping the daughter overnight. Hopefully being in the hospital means she won’t be exposed to any allergens.”

“Tell me a little more about your fellows. Park and…”

“Adams.”

“Right.”

“Not much to say about them,” Chase shifted in his chair. “Don’t really know them that well.”

“I presume you hired them?”

“House did. They’re his fellows, really. And he wasn’t, well, his hiring process had been impacted before he left.”

Chase was dancing around his feelings towards his fellows.

“So these are fellows you inherited, in a sense,” Doctor Miller followed his thinking. “Do you think you would have chosen them yourself?”

“Well, not necessarily,” Chase hesitated.

“I get the sense you’re holding back a bit.”

“They’re just…annoying,” Chase decided on the word.

“How so?”

He took a breath. This was therapy. Doctor Miller couldn’t reveal his feelings towards his team to anyone.

“Park is awkward, like I said. Not her fault or anything, just how it is. And Adams can be a little self-righteous. But it’s not like we have any big fights or anything. Really, it’s not that bad.”

………

“So, to summarize,” Chase stood in the middle of the stage. “We have two patients, a brother and a sister. The brother was quickly treated for a panic attack and released the next day. A few weeks later, the sister experiences two allergic reactions in two days. She has a confirmed allergy to animal dander, but the parents insist she hasn’t been exposed. We decided to hold her an extra night and send her home.” He recapped the case so far. “Doesn’t sound that exciting, right? Let’s fast forward to the next day.”

………

“What’s going on?”

“Tommy Kriska is back in the ER,” Adams quickly explained.

“What? Aren’t we discharging his sister today?” Chase matched her pace. “What happened to him?”

“I don’t know, the mother found him an hour ago.”

The two doctors reached Tommy’s room. Private, of course.

Chase opened the door.

Tommy was sitting on his bed surrounded by nurses. His entire body was covered in an angry, red rash. Monica stood in the room with someone Chase hadn’t seen before. A teenager. Possibly the third sibling?

“What happened?” Chase put on a pair of gloves and stepped closer. Carefully, he examined one of Tommy’s arms. It was covered in hives, and a series of white bumps had started to appear.

“I don’t know,” Monica was speaking quickly. “I just- he was fine- I don’t know what happened.”

“It’s everywhere,” Adams examined. “This has to be systemic.”

“Maybe not-”

“He would have to roll around in something for it to spread like this,” Adams argued.

Tommy started to gasp for breath.

“We’re putting him on oxygen,” one of the nurses informed Chase.

Chase was at a loss. As he tried to figure out what to do, Park showed up in the doorway.

“Doctor Chase.”

“Not a great time.”

“Doctor Chase, I really need to speak with you.”

“What?” He snapped. “What is it?”

“Lucy, upstairs. She’s getting worse.”

Park’s announcement set off another round of panic for Monica. Again, Chase cursed her lack of subtlety. Leaving Tommy in the care of a few nurses, Chase and Adams quickly followed Park upstairs.

Lucy was sitting upright in her bed, leaning forward and wheezing. A rash had spread up and down both of her arms.

“What’s going on?” Monica pushed past the doctors towards her daughter. “What’s happening? Honey, are you alright?”

Lucy shrunk back in her bed.

“It itches!” She cried.

“What’s going on?” Adams whispered to Chase. “She was fine, now all of the sudden she’s getting worse?”

Chase put on a brave face for Monica.

“Don’t worry,” he reassured her. “We’ll get her stabilized.”

………

“Now we have two patients with rashes and difficulty breathing,” Chase summarized for the audience. “What should we give patient two, the girl with the allergy?”

A student in the front raised her hand.

“What about intravenous antihistamine?”

“But they gave her antihistamines last time, and the rash still came back,” another student contradicted her. “Maybe it’s not an allergy, and the hives are caused by something else.”

“But antihistamine has few negative interactions with other drugs,” the first student argued. “Is she on any antidepressants?”

Chase didn’t point out the rarity of a ten-year-old being on antidepressants.

“The patient is not on any medication.”

“Then I would give her,” the student paused, like she was no longer positive of her answer, “intravenous antihistamines.”

“And that’s what we decided to do,” Chase smiled. “Great job.”

………

“Alright, we’re going to administer intravenous antihistamine,” Chase ordered. “That should treat the rash.”

“What about Tommy?” A soft voice asked from the doorway.

It was the same teenager who had been standing in Tommy’s hospital room. Apparently, he had followed everyone upstairs.

“Who are you?” Park asked.

“My other son,” Monica answered on his behalf. “Ryan, don’t worry, alright? You have to get to school.”

“But mom-”

“Tommy and Lucy will be fine,” Monica smoothed Lucy’s hair. “Dad said he’ll try and stop by after work.”

“Try, sure. That means he’s not coming.”

Chase wasn’t surprised to hear that. It appeared that Liam Kirska was a workaholic. His early appearance in the saga of his children’s illness looked like it would be more of a guest spot than a starring role.

Monica glanced over at Chase, clearly embarrassed that he’d heard the comment, but he didn’t pay her any mind. Instead, Chase debated whether he should send Ryan out or not. It wasn’t his business whether the kid skipped school, and he had no desire to meddle in family affairs. He also knew that when you told a teenager “no,” they tended to resent you. You were supposed to talk to them like adults, but keep in mind they were anything but.

“Ryan,” Chase nodded, “I’m Doctor Chase, your sister’s doctor. I promise we’re doing everything we can for her. Would you be able to stop by after school and answer a few questions for us? That would be really helpful.”

“Really?” He lit up at the prospect of being helpful, then quickly tried to play it off. “Alright, I guess I can help.”

“Thank you,” Chase smiled.

Park questioned his motives in his office later on.

“What’s the kid going to do?” She asked. “What are we going to ask him?”

Chase rolled the whiteboard to the middle of the room and tore off the cap of the marker with his teeth. Park and Adams were sitting at the table.

“People like feeling helpful,” he explained. “I just wanted to give him something to do.”

At the top of the whiteboard, he wrote, ‘symptoms.’ Then, he wrote, ‘shortness of breath’ and ‘hives.’

“Alright,” he turned to his fellows. “What do we think?”

………

“What kind of condition could cause hives and shortness of breath in two different patients?” Chase asked.

By this point, he had turned on the projector and started to write a list for the audience to see. All the way in the back, Chase watched Foreman twitch as he touched the machinery. The last head of Chase’s department had been responsible for quite a bit of damage to hospital property. It was an involuntary reflex.

“Let’s go, audience participation. I promise I don’t bite.”

“Maybe the boy has the same allergy?” Someone offered.

Chase wrote down the word ‘allergy.’

………

“I don’t know,” Adams was unsure. “If it’s an allergy, that means Lucy was exposed in the hospital as well.”

“Maybe not,” Park argued. “It could still be a result of the initial exposure. It might still be in her system, and Tommy could have been exposed at home.”

“We’ll test Tommy for allergies,” Chase put a check-mark next to the allergy theory.

………

“What about a virus?” Another student offered. “A virus can cause hives and difficulty breathing.” The student looked over their notes. “I know you said the kids didn’t appear sick, but they could have something lurking.”

“Like?”

“What about mononucleosis? It appears differently in kids than adults. It can cause a rash and shortness of breath.”

………

Chase wrote ‘virus’ on the whiteboard.

“It could be an atypical presentation of a common virus,” Chase explained. “Something like RSV.”

“But Tommy had shortness of breath a few weeks ago,” Adams recalled. “That’s a long time for a virus.”

“But that was a panic attack,” Chase argued.

“Was it? Maybe it’s a virus that’s been lingering for a long time, like Mono or atypical Pneumonia,” Park theorized. “The dad is a pediatrician, maybe it’s something he brought home from work.”

“Nobody else has been sick,” Adams pointed out.

“What about Human Parechovirus?” Chase added. “It causes the worst symptoms in young children. Maybe the dad caught it and had no symptoms.”

“It causes a rash, and shortness of breath,” Adams followed.

“But there’s no fever,” Park pointed out.

“Maybe they had a fever before, and it already broke,” Chase theorized. “And a virus can cause a fever, but it doesn’t always cause a fever.”

He circled ‘virus’ on the whiteboard.

………

“What else?” He asked the room.

“I think it has to be environmental, if both siblings have it,” someone offered.

Chase added the words ‘environment’ to the list.

“These are all great ideas,” he praised the students who had contributed. “We took all of these into account. First, we gave Tommy an allergy panel. We also tested both patients for common viruses, including infectious mononucleosis. We also conducted a lengthy interview with both parents about anything in the household that might cause the symptoms.”

………

“Go search the house. Don’t tell the parents,” Chase instructed his team. “Look for anything the kids could get into- any chemicals, food, anything. Do it while the older one is still at school and dad’s at work.”

Adams had a sour look on her face.

“What, let me guess,” Chase sighed. “You don’t want to do it. It’s not right. We can’t just break into someone’s house.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You look like you don’t want to do it,” Park pointed out.

“Thanks, Park,” Adams glared at her.

“What? I’m just pointing out what I’m seeing,” Park frowned.

“You don’t have to comment on everything.”

“Well, I-”

“Stop, just stop arguing,” Chase sighed. “I’ll go search the house. Park, come with me. Adams, you can interview the kid. I don’t care what you ask, just make it seem like he’s contributing, alright?”

“Fine,” she sighed.

“In the meantime, we’ll run the tests.”

……….

“When we ran the tests, everything came back negative,” Chase narrated to the students. “Tommy had no known allergies, and they didn’t have any of the viruses we tested them for. We shifted our focus to something in the environment.”

………

As Chase had predicted, the Kriska house was big. He glanced over at Park in the passenger’s seat. She looked up and down the street, probably estimating the price of each, almost identical, house.

“Different from where you grew up?” Chase focused on the road.

“A lot different.”

For Chase, the neighborhood held a certain resemblance to his own hometown, but he didn’t mention that to Park. It felt tactless to mention his wealthy upbringing around her.

“This is the one,” he drove past one of the houses, referencing the address he took from Tommy’s chart. “I’ll park a few streets over.”

They drove in relative silence. Park wasn’t one for conversation.

“Remind me to bring Foreman a coffee before we go back,” Chase put the car in park. “He thinks we’re at the Starbucks down the street.”

“Oh. Alright.”

The house was easy to break into. Common sense would say that a wealthy family could afford a better security system, but there weren’t many robberies in that area. Chase found that sometimes it was more difficult to break into worse areas, both because the residents learned to anticipate burglaries, and they couldn’t afford to replace their possessions. It’s easier to leave the door unlocked when you can foot the bill if someone loads your TV into their truck.

The front door was locked, but the next one he tried was not.

“Not even locked?” Park was amazed as Chase opened the side door. “Wow. This must be a really safe area.”

“Yeah,” Chase agreed, then paused. It was a little extreme to keep the door completely unlocked. For a harrowing second, he feared someone might be home. Maybe Ryan did end up skipping school.

He slowly opened the door.

Chase realized the interior of the house was just as nice as the exterior when the door opened into a mudroom. It was the hallmark of an upper class family that described themselves as merely ‘upper-middle class.’

Park was all business.

“I think we should start with the bedrooms, then the bathrooms to see if there’s any chemicals, and the kitchen.”

Chase just nodded.

“I wonder if their bedrooms are next to each other,” she continued. “Could be something in the walls, or the vents.”

She moved quickly, careful not to touch anything. Chase noticed an uncharacteristic hesitancy as she walked around, like she thought the walls might jump out at her.

“It smells like vanilla in here,” she noted.

“It does.”

“It’s nice.”

As Chase and Park walked through the kitchen, he saw his reflection on the surface of the marble counter.

“This kitchen is immaculate.”

“Must have a great maid,” Park kept walking.

Chase made a mental note to ask about a maid. He could address it under the guise of being concerned about chemical exposure.

They reached one of the bedrooms.

“Which one is this?” Chase looked inside.

“It says ‘Tommy’s Room’ on the door.”

“Oh.”

Slowly, Chase pushed the door further open and stepped inside.

Just like the kitchen, Tommy’s room was impeccably clean. There was no clutter, and someone had made the bed that morning. Chase found it to be off-putting.

“Something’s weird,” he looked around. He felt like if he touched anything, he would leave a mark.

“What?” Park had on a pair of latex gloves.

“It’s too clean.” Chase noted the neat arrangement of knick knacks on the shelves, like someone had lined them up with a ruler. “Have you ever seen a twelve-year-old with a room like this?”

The other bedrooms, belonging to Lucy and Ryan, had the same quality, like someone had staged the rooms for a magazine shoot.

“They could be disciplined,” Park offered. “I always kept my room clean.”

“It’s possible,” Chase acknowledged, but privately, he had his doubts. The combination of the unlocked door with the incredibly tidy house seemed contradictory, like someone had expected Chase and Park to stop by and cleaned up the house in advance. Someone was putting on a show.

Searching the bedrooms didn’t produce many results. There were no splotches of mold or chemical leaks. Due to the sterile appearance of the rooms, there wasn’t much of anything to even examine.

Chase let Park search the kids’ bathrooms, since each one had their own, while he moved on to the parents’ bedroom. Since neither of the parents were sick, he didn’t expect to find much. Of course, everything was in order. He had to assume that Liam and Monica slept in the same freshly made bed. There was no evidence to indicate otherwise.

In the parents’ bathroom, he didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. There were two toothbrushes, a hair dryer, and some towels hanging up. He examined the bag of makeup, the perfume, the hair gel, the mouthwash, and decided there wasn’t anything helpful.

He walked back into the hallway.

“Did you find anything?” He called out to Park.

“No,” she answered from someone’s room. “I’m taking samples, but I don’t see anything.”

Chase wandered down the hallway. He opened another door, which seemed to be a home office that must have been Liam Kriska’s.

Chase stepped inside.

There were papers scattered across the desk, and a computer. Chase noticed a crumpled granola bar wrapper, and a cup of water that hadn’t been brought back to the kitchen.

Monica Kriska was obviously the one responsible for the house’s tidiness. It was a stereotype. The hard-working doctor who saved kids' lives, and his pretty blonde wife who cooked his meals and cleaned up after him. Chase didn’t need to look any further. He shut the door.

The hallway had a storage closet with extra pillows and blankets, and a surplus of toiletries. Chase picked up a mini bottle of mouthwash, then set it back down. Nothing unusual again.

He met Park back downstairs. She took samples of the kids’ soaps and shampoos, but she didn’t seem confident that they would produce any meaningful results.

“I guess we should check the kitchen,” she tightly held onto the backpack full of samples.

There was no expired food in the fridge or pantries. All of the chemicals under the sink were name-brand and common. As a last resort, Chase and Park searched through the trash and recycling bins outside, but of course, there was nothing of note.

If there was anything to be found in the house, they weren’t finding it without more guidance.

Back at the office, they relayed as much to Adams, who had finished her interview with Ryan. Chase set down a tray of Starbucks coffee on the desk.

“Anything?” Chase asked Adams.

“No,” she shook her head. “He’s a nice kid, but he really didn’t know anything.”

Chase expected as much.

“How’s Tommy?”

“Poor kid’s still covered in that rash.”

“I should go check on him,” Chase decided.

Foreman knocked on the office door before Chase could leave.

“Ah!” Chase smiled. “Just the man I wanted to see.” He opened the door, a coffee in hand. “This is for you.”

Foreman took the cup, a frown on his face.

“It only took you a full two hours to go to Starbucks.”

“There was a line.”

“I’m sure.”

Foreman looked over Chase’s shoulder at his fellows, then back at Chase. Foreman tended to do this whenever he wanted to rip into Chase without embarrassing him in front of his fellows. With a sigh, Chase shut the door, standing in the hallway with Foreman.

“Did you check on the patient today?” Foreman asked.

“I’m going now.”

“So you’ve checked on neither of them.”

“I was doing some research. Running tests.”

“And going to Starbucks.”

“Look,” Chase sighed, “if there’s something you want to ask, just go ahead.”

Foreman frowned.

“I don’t think I’ll like the answer.”

“Then don’t ask. Plausible deniability.”

………

“We conducted an extensive interview with the parents about the household environment,” Chase lied to the audience. “We asked about any recent chemical usage, any history of construction on the house, recent travel, anything we could think of. But nobody had any answers. I went to check on the patients again later that evening.”

………

Mercifully, Foreman let Chase go. Together with Park and Adams, he left to check on Lucy and Tommy, who by this point had been moved to the same room. Chase questioned the medical logic behind that decision, but he supposed that was his punishment for hiding in his office. He couldn’t criticize.

He slowly opened the door. Both Lucy and Tommy were in their beds, and Monica was sitting in one of the chairs in the corner. He sympathized with her spine. From personal experience, Chase knew those chairs were uncomfortable.

“Mind if I come in?”

“Oh, Doctor Chase,” she stood up. “Robert.”

“Monica,” he greeted her, then turned to the patients. “I’m here to check up on you two, and ask a few questions. I know Doctor Adams spoke with Ryan earlier…”

“I sent him home,” Monica explained. “I didn’t want him staying all night, not when he has school tomorrow.”

“Of course.”

He put on a pair of latex gloves.

“Alright, Tommy, I just want to take a closer look at that rash. Is that ok with you?”

“Ok,” he answered quietly. Apparently, he was a soft-spoken kid.

“You’re very polite, Tommy,” Doctor Adams tried to make conversation.

“Thank you.”

Chase gently touched one of Tommy’s arms, looking for any skin reaction. His arm was still splotchy and red, and a few patches of hives still lingered.

“Does it hurt when I touch your arm?” Chase asked.

“No,” Tommy answered, but Chase didn’t miss the grimace on his face.

Kids always said it didn’t hurt, until it hurt so much they physically couldn’t bear it.

“Let’s take a look at your hand, here,” Chase spread Tommy’s fingers. He noticed that Tommy had a nail-biting habit, and a pretty bad one at that. His fingers were stubs. It was fairly common in kids, but still unpleasant to look at.

“Tommy,” Doctor Park was ready, “can you tell us what you were doing when the rash started?”

“I was home with mom and Ryan,” Tommy explained in a few words. “And I was in the shower, and then I dried off, and then it was all itchy.”

“What kind of soap do you use?” Park asked him, even though a twelve-year-old would have no idea, and she already took a sample of the soap earlier that day.

“It’s just Aveeno, the plain stuff,” Monica answered.

She sounded tired. Even though she looked put-together, her voice gave her away. She cleared her throat, like she had noticed that he had noticed.

“Do you think that’s what caused it?” She asked.

“We’re not sure,” Chase admitted. “He could be allergic to an ingredient in the soap, but it’s very unusual for an allergy of that nature to appear randomly. We’ll still do a skin test.”

“Do you think the same thing is causing the rashes in both of them?” She asked.

“Most likely,” Adams answered. “We think it might be something environmental, but we’re not sure why only two family members would have a reaction.”

“That’s why we need the two of you to let us know if you remember anything unusual,” Chase informed the children. “If you were playing outside, if you ate a new food, just let us know, alright? You won’t be in trouble, but it will help us stop the rashes.”

“Mrs. Kriska, could you bring in a sample of their soaps and shampoos?” Park asked.

“Yes, of course,” Monica nodded. “I can ask Ryan, or my husband- someone will pick them up.”

“Are you planning on staying overnight?”

“I can’t leave them here alone, and with my husband’s work, I know he’s tired as well.”

“I think it would do you good to go home and rest,” Chase offered.

“It’s ok, mom,” Tommy reassured her.

Monica paused, like she might be considering it.

She took a breath and briefly massaged her temples.

“Alright,” she nodded slowly, “but I’ll be back in the morning.”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Chase added, “we’d like to ask a few questions before you leave, just so we can establish a better timeline of events.”

“Of course,” she nodded. “Anything I can do to help.”

“Tomorrow, we’ll analyze the samples of the soap and shampoos. It would also help us if you could bring in any laundry detergents, chemicals, anything the kids have been exposed to,” he explained. “I’ll have Doctor Park prepare the tests tonight.”

That was Park’s signal to go analyze the samples they had already gathered from the house. Tomorrow, Chase would take whatever Monica gave him and simply throw it in the trash.

“Tonight?” Monica echoed. “Thank you for moving so quickly.”

“It’s no problem,” Chase accepted the compliment on behalf of the group. “Doctor Park, could you go start on those now?”

“Sure,” she quickly left the room.

“Monica,” Chase refocused his attention. “Would you mind stepping out with us?”

“I’ll be right back,” she reassured her children. “I’m not going anywhere yet.”

In the safety of the hallway, Chase started asking questions, leaving Adams to take notes.

“It’s alright if you don’t have the answers yet,” he reassured her. “We know it’s been a long day for you, but we’d appreciate any information you can give us.”

“I’ll try my best.”

She had regained some of her energy.

“We suspect there might be something in the environment causing your children’s illness,” Chase explained, “due to the timing of the symptoms. But it’s unclear why only two members of the family would show symptoms. I assume everyone lives in the same house…?”

“Of course.”

“So we wanted to know if at any point Lucy and Tommy went off somewhere without another family member present. Do they go to the same school?”

“Different,” she shook her head. “Tommy just started middle school.”

“How do they get to school?”

“I drive both of them.”

Chase heard the sound of Adams scribbling on a clipboard.

“What about pesticides?” She asked. “Do they play any sports?”

“Tommy plays soccer a few times a week,” Monica recounted. “Lucy isn’t interested. She’s the artist in the family,” she smiled fondly, then frowned, as if she remembered the ‘artist’ was currently sick in a hospital bed.

“Any international travel recently?” Chase asked.

“Not them, no. But my husband travels a lot for work. Medical conferences, conventions, things of that nature. He usually stays in the US, but he’s been to Europe a few times.”

“I see,” he paused.

Chase imagined the stress of taking care of three kids alone. It didn’t sound easy.

Having mistaken her boss’ hesitation for a lack of questions, Adams asked another one.

“When Tommy was here a few weeks ago, the emergency room doctors thought he was having a panic attack,” she remembered. “We’re trying to determine if it really was a panic attack, or if it’s related to the rash. Have you noticed any other panic attacks? Does he often have shortness of breath?”

“Not that I’ve noticed. And I’m sure I would know, he tells me everything.”

Chase tried to silence House’s voice in his head. Everybody lies, but children especially.

“What was he doing when he had the first panic attack, the shortness of breath, whatever it may be? Any physical exertion? Was he playing soccer?”

“I wasn’t in the room,” she explained. “Liam- my husband was there. He said it just started out of nowhere. I’m sure you could ask him.”

Chase didn’t think he would ever see Liam Kriska again, but he nodded along anyways.

“Alright,” Chase accepted the answer. “We’ll analyze the samples and do some skin tests tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” she sighed. “I really don't know if I should leave them, though.”

As Chase watched her struggle over this decision, he noted the similarities between her face and her house. The polished countertops resembled the clear whites of her eyes, and he even thought he could smell a hint of vanilla still clinging to her clothes.

“They’ll be alright,” Chase assured her again. “We’ll keep a close watch over them.”

“I know, but…”

“You can trust me,” Chase added.

“I’m sure I can. You’re a good doctor.”

“Oh- ah, thank you, Monica. Ma’am.”

“I’ll be back here early tomorrow morning,” she decided. “I’ll let them know I’m leaving.”

She went back into the patients’ room.

When Chase turned to leave, Adams was giving him a weird look.

“What?” He asked.

“Nothing.”

“What is it, just tell me.”

“Nothing!” She put up her hands. “I just didn’t want to interrupt anything.”

“Interrupt-” he realized what she meant. “Ew, gross. It’s not like that.”

“Whatever you say.”

Chase frowned. It wasn’t like that at all.

………

“We decided to test all of the soap products the patients had been using, both to check for any foreign substances in the products, and for any allergies. We decided to conduct skin tests, where we swabbed the patients’ skin with the product. Everything was negative. We were back at square one. So, with that being said, would anyone like to guess what we did next?”

“Has the shortness of breath improved at all?” A student asked.

“It comes and goes randomly.”

“What about the rash?”

“Sometimes it looks better, sometimes it looks worse.”

“I still think it’s the environment. Could it be something in the hospital?”

………

“What do you mean?” Park asked. “Like a chemical?”

“Chemical exposure could be causing the symptoms,” Adams sat at the table in Chase’s office the next day.

“But it doesn’t explain why they’re here in the first place,” Chase had a marker in his mouth.

“What about lice?” Adams asked. “The kids could have caught lice at school, and a lice allergy could cause a repeated reaction if they keep getting bitten.”

“It doesn’t explain the shortness of breath that Tommy had a few weeks ago,” Chase paused, but still wrote the word ‘lice’ on the whiteboard. “But if we assume he did have a panic attack, and it’s not related to the rash…a lice allergy would fit. We’ll check both of them.”

“And if it’s not lice?” Adams asked.

“We need to completely isolate them,” Chase decided. “Remove them from any possible allergens or environmental contagions. If their symptoms stop, at least we know we’re on the right path. If not, we need to start looking at other options.”

“Good luck explaining that to the family,” Park anticipated the pushback.

“I’m not looking forward to it.”

………

“Some might say it’s an extreme decision,” Chase explained. “But if a patient is suffering from an allergy, or something in the environment, one effective way of improving their symptoms is to completely isolate them. We figured that if the patients started to improve, then we’d know the cause is environmental, and if they didn’t improve, we would shift our focus. This hospital has four negative pressure rooms where we can isolate patients from their surroundings. We decided to put each patient in a room to see if any changes took place.”

………

As expected, Monica didn’t have a positive reaction to the news.

“Are you sure?” Monica asked. “What does it mean, exactly? They would be put in a room alone?” She rubbed at one of her wrists.

“We need to separate the kids from anything that could be causing their illness,” Chase explained. “It will help us narrow our list.”

“It just seems a bit…brutal,” Monica hesitated. “To lock them up like that.”

“It’s the only way, mom,” Ryan accepted. He had visited to drop off a few items for his siblings, and he was currently listening in on the conversation.

He should have been in school, but it wasn’t Chase’s business.

“Ryan,” Monica quickly turned like she’d forgotten he’d been standing there. “Please, don’t worry about any of this.”

Ryan started to say something, then quickly stopped.

“Whatever,” he mumbled.

“How long would they be in there for?”

“Two nights.”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I need to ask my husband.”

“Good luck getting ahold of him,” Ryan scoffed.

“Ryan!” She scolded, then quickly looked over at Chase. “Ryan, please.”

Feeling acutely uncomfortable at witnessing any family dysfunction, Chase tried to move on.

“If anything happens, we’ll break isolation and check on them,” Chase explained. “They won’t be locked in there.”

“Let me call him,” she decided.

“Go ahead.”

As she stepped away to call her husband, Chase was left with Ryan.

He remembered how Adams tried to talk to his siblings, and how little they gave her. Chase wondered whether he should ask Ryan about school or something, but deep down, he knew Ryan didn’t want to talk about school. Teenagers never wanted to talk about school.

Instead, Chase and Ryan both watched as Monica held the phone up to her ear.

“He’s not going to answer,” Ryan muttered under his breath.

“Does he work long hours?”

“Yeah.”

Chase didn’t ask anything else.

With a frown, Monica pulled the phone away from her ear and slid it into her purse.

Liam didn’t answer.

Chase felt embarrassed on her behalf. For a moment, he even felt angry at Liam for leaving her in the dust like this, forcing her to make all the decisions. It didn’t seem fair.

“Well,” she didn’t lose her composure. “He must be with a patient.”

“I’m sure,” Chase agreed.

“Then I suppose you should start with the isolation,” she decided. “Let me know how I can help.”

Monica wasn’t the only one who had reservations. Later that day, Foreman knocked on the door of Chase’s office.

He wasn’t interrupting much. Chase and his fellows had been sitting around in silence.

Chase tried to start a conversation, but he didn’t have much to say.

“Mrs. Kriska agreed to isolate the patients,” Chase offered.

“That’s great,” Adams seemed unfocused.

“She tried to ask her husband first, but he’s basically unreachable,” Chase frowned as he chewed on a pen. “Ridiculous, I think. It’s like he doesn’t even care.”

“Did you embrace her about it?” Adams asked.

“Wha- no,” Chase frowned. “I’m not trying to sleep with her.”

“Ok.”

“I’m not,” Chase insisted.

“And I said ‘ok.’”

Park chose not to engage. Instead, she kept reading the same three sentences written on the back of the shampoo bottle that Monica brought in.

“Anything?” Chase asked.

“No parabens,” Park noted. “So,” she was grasping at straws, “we can’t rule out an allergy to…parabens.”

It was then that Foreman knocked. So really, he wasn’t interrupting much.

“Come on,” Chase called out.

Foreman quickly opened the door.

“You’re putting those kids in negative pressure isolation rooms?”

“I guess word travels quickly.”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit extreme?” Foreman questioned, echoing Monica’s own opposition.

“No, I don’t.” Chase took the pen out of his mouth. “We think there’s something in their environment that’s making them sick, so we’re taking them out of the environment. We tested for viruses, lice, every allergen we could think of, their tox screening was negative, and they’re still not getting better. At least this way, we’ll know whether it’s environmental or not.”

It was sound medical reasoning.

“How long are you keeping them?” Foreman asked.

“Two nights, then we’ll check to see if their symptoms improve.”

“Alright,” Foreman begrudgingly agreed. “Two nights.”

………

“For anyone who doesn’t know how a negative pressure room works,” Chase explained, “the air pressure in the room is lower than the air pressure outside of it. This causes air to naturally flow out of the room. Theoretically, this prevents any contaminants from entering the room. In our case, we had the patients shower with hospital-provided soap, and we gave them new gowns. Then, we put them each in one room for two nights.”

………

Chase expected the kids to show a little more fear when they were put in the isolation rooms, but they took it well enough. Both Monica and Ryan stayed for a few hours, watching from the other side of the glass.

Chase and his fellows also stayed for a while, each of them rotating out.

“How are you both doing?” Chase asked.

“Bored,” Tommy answered.

“Sorry about that,” Chase frowned. “We can’t let you touch anything from out here.”

“It’s ok.”

For her part, Lucy was half-asleep.

“I’ll read you guys a book?” Ryan offered.

Tommy answered with a predictable ‘ok.’

For the team, there wasn’t much to do but let the time pass. Chase sent Adams and Park home early that afternoon, deciding to take the last shift checking on the patients before he went home himself.

“Are you sure you don’t mind staying?” Park asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Chase reassured her.

Truthfully, he had no strong desire to return to his apartment. He had started to feel a creeping sense of emptiness whenever he opened the front door, and things had been too quiet lately.

Unfortunately, he’d started to feel the same way about his office. Sitting in the basement with Lucy and Tommy actually seemed like his best option.

It was late when Chase decided to check on them one last time for the night. Monica and Ryan had already left, and both kids appeared to be asleep.

As he reached the basement, Chase turned down the hallway and saw someone standing in front of the isolation rooms.

It was Liam Kriska.

Chase had no idea how he’d made it down there, or who told him where to look, but visiting hours often didn’t apply to parents of pediatric patients, and doctors tended to have special privileges in hospitals anyways.

Liam was leaning with his back against the wall, and he faced the clear glass barrier of the isolation room. He didn’t turn when he heard Chase walking towards him.

“Doctor Kriska?” Chase called out softly.

“Hmm?”

The doctor didn’t move.

Upon closer inspection, it appeared that he’d nearly fallen asleep standing up, and the wall was preventing him from toppling over.

He looked like he’d aged a year in a week.

It was an odd scene. Chase wasn’t sure what to do.

So, he did nothing. He left Doctor Kriska standing there and went home for the night, trying to rationalize the conflicting images of a father who wouldn’t answer the phone with a father at the point of exhaustion who still visited his kids after work.

He relayed this paradox to Doctor Miller the next day.

“I’ve been thinking,” Chase started.

“Yes?”

“I shouldn’t have let Adams interview that kid.”

“Hmm,” Doctor Miller scribbled something down. Chase wanted to peer over the edge of his notepad, but he knew it would be annoying, so he didn’t.

“Why do you think that?” Doctor Miller asked for further explanation.

“I wanted her to interview him so he’d feel helpful,” Chase recalled, “so I don’t think she took it that seriously. Which is fine. But I think there’s more to the story. There’s more to that family.”

“Something she didn’t pick up on?”

“It’s not her specialty. She’s used to working with prisoners, not rich kids from the suburbs. It’s a different beast. She probably didn’t dig too deep.”

“You said there was something more to the story?”

“I have a feeling- the father seems absent, but I found him last night visiting, and I don’t know, he just looked tired, so I don’t know what to make of it.” Chase paused, then remembered her comment. “And Adams said something that bothered me. Whatever.”

“What did she say?”

“She just insinuated I was trying to sleep with the patients’ mother,” Chase frowned. “Which I’m not.”

“That’s interesting,” Doctor Miller wrote something down. “Why do you think she would say that?”

“Well-” Chase wasn’t expecting the question to be turned on him. “I don’t know, I’ve never- well, there was one time- I don’t make it a habit. I’ve been doing it less.”

“Doing what?”

“Just. Sex. In general.” Chase shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“You’ve mentioned something like that before,” Doctor Miller remembered.

“Yeah, well, she shouldn’t have said that.”

“Do you get along with Doctor Adams?” Doctor Miller asked.

“I guess so,” Chase was relieved with the change in topic. “I don’t really know her.”

“No?”

“No,” Chase frowned as he realized just how little he knew about his fellow. “I don’t know her at all.”

“Interesting.”

………

Chase frowned as he recalled that conversation with his therapist, shrink, who cares. Then, he remembered he was in front of an audience, and he smiled again.

“After two days in the isolation rooms, we checked on the patients in greater detail. To our surprise, their rashes had almost completely disappeared, and they were not exhibiting shortness of breath. What does this tell us about their illness? Yes, you, right there.”

“It’s something in their environment.”

“That’s exactly what we thought.”

………

Chase stood in his office staring at the whiteboard. He chewed on one end of the marker.

“Alright,” he nodded. “It has to be something in the environment.”

“It must be something that was present in the hospital room, but not in the isolation room,” Park theorized. “What about the sheets?”

“We used the same sheets in the isolation rooms,” Chase frowned.

“Pollen? It could have stuck to their clothes, and then stopped when they showered.”

“We tested for pollen allergies, and it’s the wrong season.”

“What if it’s an airborne antiseptic allergy?” Adams wondered. “The negative pressure in the isolation room causes air to leave the room, so it would carry airborne allergens away from the patients.”

“Doesn’t explain how they were exposed in the first place,” Chase shot it down.

“But the father is a doctor, it’s possible he brought the chemical home on his clothing.”

Chase paused to consider this.

“I don’t know, it seems like a bit of a stretch,” he hesitated, but still wrote ‘airborne antiseptic allergy’ on the whiteboard.

Someone opened the door to his office.

“Doctor Chase, they need you in room six!”

“Oh, great,” Chase set down the marker. “What now?”

Quickly, the three members of the diagnostics team made their way to the patients’ room.

“What’s going on?” Chase opened the door.

“It’s Lucy,” Monica was standing next to her daughter, combing back her hair.

Lucy was vomiting all over the sheets.

“What happened?” Adams rushed over, pulling on a pair of latex gloves.

“I don’t know, she just started throwing up out of nowhere,” Monica explained in a shaky breath. “She was just sitting there, I don’t know.”

Adams grabbed a bucket for Lucy to throw up into.

“Did she eat anything?” Chase asked.

“No,” Ryan was sitting in the corner of the room looking bewildered. “She just started vomiting out of nowhere.”

Lucy started to cry, which set off her brother.

“Am I gonna throw up too?” Tommy asked with tears in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” Chase answered honestly. Then, he caught Tommy’s pale and flushed expression. “Actually- Park, hand me another bucket.”

He handed it to Tommy, who threw up and missed the bucket completely, getting vomit all over his own sheets.

“Alright,” Chase immediately accepted it. “I need a nurse in here!”

………

“Now, we have a new symptom. Vomiting. What could that mean?”

………

“It’s not an allergy,” Chase frowned, having returned to his office. “They didn’t have any hives or shortness of breath when the vomiting started. It doesn’t make sense for two symptoms of an allergic reaction to randomly stop and for another one to start.”

He crossed off the word ‘allergy’ on the whiteboard.

“And I don’t think it’s poisoning,” Adams added from her chair. “For the same reason. And if they were exposed to a poison in the hospital, more people would show symptoms.”

“So, what?” Park looked at the board. “It’s something that causes different symptoms at different times?”

“What causes vague symptoms?” Adams wondered aloud.

“Could be autoimmune,” Chase noted. “Skin rash…what about Dermatomyositis?”

“Doesn’t explain the shortness of breath,” Park was looking over a list of symptoms.

“It can cause respiratory muscle weakness, which in turn causes shortness of breath,” Chase explained.

“What about the vomiting?”

“Dermatomyositis causes acid reflux, which can cause vomiting.”

“I’m not sold on autoimmune disease,” Adams paused. “Why are they showing symptoms at the exact same time? That’s a crazy coincidence.”

“Autoimmune diseases can be triggered by stress,” Chase countered. “Maybe they both had the same stressful experience.”

“Like what?” Park finally agreed with Adams to Chase’s detriment. “Their chauffeur was late?”

“It could be something in the environment that’s harmless to most people, but happened to trigger them,” Chase argued. “We’ll run the test for Dermatomyositis and look for creatine kinase in the blood. And muscle weakness. I’ll go check on the patients and get a blood sample.”

………

“We changed our focus to an autoimmune disease called ‘Dermatomyostitis,’ which causes rashes, shortness of breath, and gastrointestinal distress. But I’ll admit, this idea wasn’t perfect. A hallmark trait of the disease is muscle weakness, and neither of the patients exhibited that symptom. But the vomiting threw a wrench into our other theories. We treated two symptoms, and another one started. We had to get creative.”

………

“How are you both feeling?” Chase asked.

“Tired,” Tommy murmured.

“Well, we’re going to have Doctor Adams take a quick blood sample.” He anticipated fear from the patients. “I promise she’ll be quick.”

To his surprise, neither of them looked concerned.

Leaving Adams to it, he turned to Monica.

“Please, what’s going on?” She asked.

Chase had to admit her commitment to her image. She had gone home overnight, and upon her return, she was looking like something out of Good Housekeeping.

“We’re not sure what caused the vomiting,” he spoke softly. “We’re putting them on a special diet supervised by a nurse. Soft foods that are easy to…if they need to throw up again, it will be easier on them.” He tried to keep his voice out of the patients’ earshot.

“But what’s causing it?” Monica asked.

“We thought it might be an allergy, or something environmental, but now we’re testing them for an autoimmune condition.”

“Both of them?” Her eyes widened.

“We’re trying to cover all of our bases,” he wanted her to stay calm. “It’s still possible this is a virus, we just don’t know.”

He looked over at Adams, who was almost done collecting the samples.

“We’re trying our best,” he reassured Monica.

“Promise?” She whispered.

“Ah, sorry?”

“Do you promise?” She whispered again. Her voice almost sounded like a little kid. “Promise you’re trying your best?”

“I promise,” he looked into her wide eyes. “I promise we’re trying our best.”

“Alright.” A bit of the tension left her shoulders. “Thank you.”

………

“Our tests for the autoimmune condition were negative,” Chase recounted. “To put it mildly, we didn’t have many other ideas. So, with that being said, what would be your next move?”

He didn’t expect anybody to say anything. There were a few moments of silence.

“Maybe we could check in on the original symptoms?” Someone asked.

“I like that. So far, the rash hasn’t reappeared, and neither has the shortness of breath.”

“What about the vomiting?”

“They have not vomited since they started the special diet.”

“So they have no symptoms?”

“Exactly.”

………

“You can’t discharge them,” Foreman opposed. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not? They have no symptoms.”

Chase and Foreman were standing in the hallway.

“But they did have symptoms.”

“So does that mean nobody is ever allowed to leave the hospital, just because they’ve had symptoms in the past?”

Foreman was not amused.

“Look,” Chase changed strategies. “They’ve been here without symptoms for almost a week at this point. There’s nothing to treat. It was probably some virus that passed.”

“It’s your call,” Foreman answered, which meant he disagreed but couldn’t do much about it.

“Is their father making you keep them here?”

“No.”

“Have you even heard from him? I’ve barely seen him, and usually the kids are asleep by that point. There’s no way he cares that much.”

“That’s harsh.”

“It’s true,” Chase insisted.

“Fine, like I said, it’s your call. I just want you to be sure.”

Chase’s team had no choice but to agree with him.

“There’s nothing to treat,” Adams repeated. “We should be using this time to help other patients who need it. I can’t imagine how much they’re paying to keep their kids here. This isn’t a hotel.”

“It resolved on its own,” Park agreed. “It’s been a week.”

“We’ll discharge both of them tomorrow,” Chase decided. “I’ll go let them know.”

He caught Monica and Ryan in the hallway. It seemed they were leaving for the day.

“Oh! Robert,” Monica smiled at him. “Wait, before you say anything…” she reached into her purse. “I brought this for you.”

She pulled out a ziploc bag of chocolate chip cookies.

“What’s this?” He took the bag.

“I made these for you and your team,” she smiled.

“Oh, wow,” he examined the bag. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. Most patients didn’t give him gifts. They were too frazzled.

He settled on saying, “You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s a thank you present, for looking after Lucy and Tommy.

“Well, I have some good news! We’re sending them both home tomorrow.”

“Really?” She smiled even more.

“Since they haven’t displayed any symptoms for a week, we think it’s safe to discharge them. But of course, you can always call us if you need anything.”

“Oh, thank you!” She was beaming. “I’m so happy to hear that. Just, thank you so much, for everything you’ve done.”

She opened her arms, signalling for a hug.

“Of course,” he quickly hugged her, mindful of her son standing there. As usual, she smelled like perfume and vanilla. He stepped back.

“We can surprise them tomorrow,” she decided.

Chase looked at Ryan. He was surprised to see a blank expression on his face.

“Ryan,” Chase attempted to be nice, “I’m sure your siblings are very happy you visited so often. You’re a great brother.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he expressed without emotion.

Monica didn’t seem to notice her son’s negative reaction, but Chase was puzzled.

“Alright, Ryan, school night. Let’s get going.”

Chase wasn’t sure the point of saying that when Ryan most definitely wasn’t going to school tomorrow, but he let it go. He watched the two of them leave, the bag of cookies in his hand.

Adams was not amused when he came back to his office.

“What’s that?” She asked.

“What?”

“In your hand.”

“Oh. She made us cookies.”

“Who did?”

“Monica.”

She raised her eyebrows and turned away.

“Weird,” Park said to nobody in particular.

“Why’s it weird?” Chase asked. “She’s thankful we’re helping her. Most patients just yell at us.”

Park looked over at Adams, who offered no help.

“It’s nothing,” Park dropped it.

“I’m just glad we’re discharging them tomorrow,” Adams was tracing the ceiling tiles with her eyes.

Chase didn’t push it. He didn’t have the energy for a fight. Instead, he bit into a cookie. It was delicious.

………

“It’s hard to come up with an idea, right? What do you do when there’s nothing to treat?”

Chase voiced the confusion that the audience was probably feeling.

“Ultimately, we decided to discharge the patients. We chalked it up to a virus and prepared to send them home the next day. But our plans were interrupted.”

………

“Alright, here are the discharge papers, we just need you to sign here,” Chase went over a stack of documents with Monica. “Did you bring clothes for them to change into?”

“Right here,” Ryan held up a duffel bag.

“Great, we’re just going to take one last set of vitals, and you guys will be all set.”

Lucy and Tommy were sitting on top of their respective beds. True to her word, Monica had surprised them with the news of their release from the hospital.

“Sorry guys,” she smiled. “It’s back to school for you.”

Chase’s fellows had accompanied him to help with the discharge process. He didn’t expect Liam Kriska to make an appearance, but he was a bit surprised that the man hadn’t bothered to show up. He must have been working. Watching Monica try to juggle a series of bags, clothes, and discharge forms, he felt pity. In a twisted sense, it might have been more relaxing for her in the hospital.

“So we’re leaving?” Tommy asked as Park used a stethoscope to listen to his breathing.

“Looks like it,” Chase smiled.

“Lucy, I’m going to take your blood pressure,” Adams informed her. “Can you lift up your left arm?”

“Ok.”

“We’ll have you both stop by next week for a check-up,” Chase finished.

“Lucy,”” Adams spoke gently, “your arm.”

“Can’t.”

“I’m sorry?”

Chase looked over at Lucy. She was staring blankly into space.

“Lucy?” Adams spoke a little more forcefully. “Can you hear me?”

“Lucy, what’s wrong?” Monica held her daughter's wrist. “Are you-”

A scream.

“Help! Help me!” Tommy was yelling as he fell back onto his bed. “No! No!”

He seemed to be looking at something in the room, but there was nothing there.

“Tommy,” Chase moved closer. “What-”

Tommy grabbed onto Chase’s arm, digging his nails into his skin.

“Help, help me,” Tommy wailed. “You have to help, please!”

“He’s hallucinating,” Adams moved quickly, stepping into the hallway to find a nurse who could sedate him. Chase tried to pry Tommy off of his arm.

“Tommy, you have to calm-”

“Ahh!” Lucy started to scream as well. “Ahh!”

“What’s going on!” Monica began to panic.

“How is this possible?” Park asked as she tried to help Chase.

“Please,” Tommy begged, “you have to help me.”

A nurse ran into the room.

“He needs to be sedated,” Chase instructed. “Hurry, before he tears my arm off.”

The nurse injected Tommy with a sedative. Chase caught him as his grip loosened, setting Tommy onto the bed.

Lucy was still panicking. She started to flail in her bed.

“Lucy!” Monica shouted.

“Get her too,” Chase quietly asked a nurse. “Quickly.”

A moment later Lucy was asleep on her side. Monica was shaking, and Ryan had pressed himself even further into the corner, like he wanted to disappear through the wall. Clearly, Lucy and Tommy wouldn’t be going home that day.

At least they had another symptom to work with.

………

Chase didn’t condone lying. Sometimes. But he made a promise to Foreman, and the man had done him more than a few favors lately. And these were med students, so who really cares? It is what it is.

“We had the patients’ mother sign the discharge papers, and they were walking out the door of the hospital when one of the patients started to cry. But upon further examination, they weren’t actually crying. Instead, their eyes were producing an excess of tears. When I looked at the patient's eyes, they had constricted pupils.”

Chase wrote down “excess tearing” and “pupil constriction” to the list of symptoms, which included “vomiting,” “rash,” and “respiratory distress.”

“Now, I’m going to give you all some time to look over these symptoms and come up with some ideas. Feel free to use the internet. We do it all the time, I promise.”

………

It was quiet chaos in Chase’s office. Wordlessly, Adams and Park sat down at the table, while Chase wrote ‘psychosis’ on the whiteboard. Stepping back, he read the symptoms.

‘Rash- hives’
‘Shortness of breath- wheezing’
‘Vomiting’
‘Psychosis’

He started chewing on the end of a marker, using his free hand to rub over where Tommy had scratched him. It would need antiseptic.

“Alright,” Chase took a breath. “What do we think?”

“It’s such a random constellation of symptoms,” Adams looked at the board.

“I know that. That’s why I’m asking what we think.”

“Well, what do you think?” Adams asked.

“Is it your job to ask the questions?”

“I still think it could be a virus,” Park ignored both of them. “There’s been case studies of children developing psychosis after an influenza infection.”

“They were negative for influenza,” Chase sat backwards in a chair. “And psychosis after a virus is extremely rare, let alone happening in two children.”

“Two related children,” Park emphasized. “There could be a genetic predisposition to psychosis.”

“But having their first episode at the exact same time?” Chase questioned.

“We don’t know if Lucy has psychosis,” Adams pointed out. “She was just screaming.”

“She couldn’t move her arm when you asked,” Chase reminded her. “She had some sort of neurological malfunction. She was looking at something that wasn’t there.”

“They could have been infected with a virus at the same time, causing the virus to progress at the same speed and causing the same reaction,” Park theorized.

“But what virus? We tested for common viruses. They’ve been here for a week, they were getting better.”

“There are hundreds of different viruses that cause the common cold,” Park argued, “and viruses can linger for weeks.”

“Two otherwise healthy children suffering from psychosis due to a common cold? At the exact same time?” Chase was getting frustrated with his teams’ lack of solid theories. “The odds are almost zero. What else do you have?”

“What about PANDAS?” Adams offered. “It’s controversial, but-”

“We already tested them for Strep, and that causes Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Tics, not psychosis. It’s the same problem as the virus theory.”

“Then you come up with something,” Adams crossed her arms. “If you’re going to pick apart every theory we have, then you can offer one up.”

“It’s your job to come up with theories,” Chase argued. “What, do you want me to just say yes to everything, even if it’s wrong? Park, what about you?”

She looked unsure of her theory, but her boss was putting her on the spot. She had to share.

“What about cancer? It could be Mycosis Fungoides, a skin cancer that’s causing the rash.”

It was shaky at best.

“And the hallucinations?” Chase asked.

“Maybe it metastasized to the brain?”

“In both of them? Mycosis isn’t often hereditary, and it’s rare in children, and it causes scales, not hives.” Chase rattled off the list of reasons why her theory wasn’t valid. “Now, does anyone have anything that doesn’t include a list of hypotheticals? Something that has a possible chance of being true?”

“You’re being harsh,” Adams insisted.

“I’m being harsh because I want to cure the patients.”

“And you think we don’t?”

“What causes hives?” He asked. “Come on, what causes hives?”

“Everything!” Park snapped. “Everything causes hives. Everything causes shortness of breath. It could be anything.”

“It can’t be anything, or we would have a valid theory by now.”

“You don’t have to be a jerk about it,” Adams defended Park. “Just because House isn’t here doesn’t mean you have to act like him.”

It stung.

“If he were here, we would have figured it out by now.”

“Again, you should put forth a theory if you respect House so much,” she didn’t back down.

“Hypothyroidism,” Chase grit his teeth. “It’s a bit of a stretch, but Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis has a strong genetic component, which explains why they’re both affected. It can cause anxiety, like with Tommy’s panic attack. High TSH levels triggers the pituitary gland to release histamine, which causes the hives. It can cause vomiting in rare cases, but sometimes, seeing one person vomit can cause another person to do the same. Maybe Lucy was impacted, and Tommy threw up after seeing her do it.”

“But what about the psychosis?” Adams tried to catch him.

“It’s a Myxedema Coma, it happens in severe cases of hypothyroidism and it causes altered mental status,” Chase explained.

“But why did the psychosis start all of the sudden?” Park asked, genuinely curious.

“Iodine deficiency. When we put them on that special diet after the vomiting, there was very little iodine in their food, which makes hypothyroidism more severe. That’s what caused the psychosis.”

“They got better in the isolation rooms,” Adams pointed out.

“It would have to be a coincidence, unfortunately. But,” he stood up. “We can confirm all of this by testing their thyroid levels. Run a panel.”

Before anyone could get up, Foreman flung open the door to the office.

“Great,” Chase muttered. This was going to be a waste of time.

“What’s going on? I have the patients’ mother completely freaking out in the hallway-”

“Send Chase,” Adams smiled maliciously. “I’m sure he’d love to calm her down.”

“You’re just mad you couldn’t come up with a diagnosis,” Chase argued, “and now we’re losing time-”

“What happened?” Foreman repeated again, this time a little more forcefully.

“Tommy has psychosis,” Chase explained quickly. “We think Lucy does as well.”

“All of the sudden?”

“We walked in there to help Monica sign the discharge papers, and Tommy started screaming that someone was coming after him. His sister started to freak out. We sedated both of them.” Chase ran through the list of events. “Any ideas?”

Foreman switched from hospital administrator to physician in the blink of an eye.

“What do you have so far?”

“There’s not a lot that we can test for,” Chase admitted. “I don’t understand why they’re having the same reactions at the same time. It would suggest something environmental, but we’ve ruled out everything we can think of. I suggested Hashimotos. If one sibling has it, the other has a much more elevated risk, but…”

“It’s not perfect,” Foreman answered.

“No, it’s not. There’s a few symptoms they’re not displaying, and a few coincidences as well. Like the fact that their symptoms appeared at the same time. We thought it might be a virus, but we checked for everything common-”

“Did you do an MRI?” Foreman asked like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh. No.”

“Really? Do an MRI on Tommy so you can see if he has encephalitis. If there’s inflammation, that should help you narrow it down.”

It made so much sense that Chase felt a bit embarrassed he didn’t think of it on his own. Curse Foreman for being a neurologist. Always thinking about the brain.

“I’ll test their thyroid levels,” Park immediately volunteered.

“I’ll prepare Tommy for an MRI,” Adams offered.

“I’ll help with the MRI,” Chase decided. “I want to ask Tommy some questions.”

………

“What do we think?” Chase asked when he felt he’d given the students enough time. “I’ll give you a hint- it involves an acronym.”

“Is it,” someone spoke up, “a…cholinergic crisis?”

“I’m impressed,” Chase smiled. “Do you want to explain what that is? Not to put you on the spot.”

“It happens when there’s too much acetylcholine in the body…” the student took a breath, “because something is damaging the enzyme that breaks it down.”

“That’s exactly it. A cholinergic crisis occurs when there’s too much acetylcholine in the body. The acronym to recognize this condition is called ‘SLUDGEMM’, which stands for Salivation, Lacrimation, which means an excess of tears, Urination, Defecation, Gastrointestinal distress, Emesis, or vomiting, Miosis, or pupil constriction, and Muscle spasms,” he went down the list. “But what causes a cholinergic crisis? Again, feel free to look it up.”

………

Chase and his fellows sat in the observation room while they ran the MRI. Tommy sat quietly inside the machine. He was still groggy from the sedatives.

“Can you hear me, Tommy?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re going to hear a loud noise from the machine, but don’t worry. That just means it’s doing its job. And you can squeeze the button we gave you if you need us to stop. We just need you to stay really still, alright?”

“Alright,” he gave his signature one word answer.

Chase started the machine.

“Nothing seems to bother this kid,” Adams observed.

“He’s probably half-asleep,” Chase watched the images appear on-screen.

Adams was right, however. Most kids hated the MRI due to the noise, the enclosed space, or the fact that their parents couldn’t accompany them. Tommy was making it easy for the doctors.

He pressed the microphone button.

“Tommy, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Sure.”

Chase had prepared his list of Hashimoto's symptoms.

“How’s school going?”

“It’s good.”

“That’s a boring question, isn’t it?”

“Sorta.”

“I was wondering, Tommy,” Chase moved on. “Do you ever have headaches?”

“Sometimes.”

“Hmm…have you noticed any pattern? Do they start when you’re doing certain things, or in certain places?”

“I guess they happen at night.”

Chase wrote that down.

“What about this…do you ever feel cold when you’re inside?”

“No.”

“Are you ever tired during the day?”

“Sometimes.”

Adams sighed next to him. Chase cut the microphone.

“School starts at seven in the morning these days,” she noted. “I’m sure he’s tired.”

“I still wanted to ask, he’s just not giving a lot of detail. This feels like an interrogation.”

“You’re usually good with kids,” she shrugged.

“I know.”

It pained him to admit that he was failing in front of Adams, but his frustration took over and allowed him to agree.

Tommy asked a muffled question. Chase turned the microphone back on.

“What was that?” Chase asked.

“Are you from England?”

Adams started laughing next to him.

“No, Tommy,” Chase answered gently. “I’m from Australia.”

“Oh. Sorry,” he seemed to think he offended Chase somehow.

“It’s alright. We all talk funny.” Chase narrowed his eyes at the screen. “No inflammation,” he murmured to Adams. “That’s a strike against encephalitis.”

“What’s that?” Tommy asked.

Chase should have turned off the microphone, but it was too late now.

“We were looking for inflammation in your brain, but we didn't see anything. So that’s good news for you. Your brain is looking good!”

He turned off the microphone and turned to Adams.

“I was hoping we’d see inflammation, just so we’d have something we could point to…but he’s healthy. No encephalitis.”

“What a shame.”

………

“Any ideas?” Chase asked. “Over there.”

“Organophosphate poisoning?”

“That’s one of the biggest causes of cholinergic crisis,” Chase nodded along. “Organophosphate poisoning results when a person comes into repeated contact with a substance, usually a pesticide, that contains organophosphate,” Chase recounted. “We can test for organophosphate exposure through a blood test, which is exactly what we did,” he recounted the details of this fake case he had created. “Sure enough, their blood contained abnormally low levels of Acetylcholine enzymes,” he said with authority, although he glanced at his index card to make sure he copied everything down correctly from Wikipedia. Niche enzymes weren’t his specialty. “But we still have a few problems. First, why do they have a rash and shortness of breath? And second, how are two children in suburban New Jersey being exposed to organophosphate at such a high level? We had to investigate further.”

………

The MRI was a bust.

“No encephalitis,” Chase explained to Foreman in the hallway. “Park should have the thyroid bloodwork soon, but I’m not holding out hope.”

“Their father said he’d be here soon.”

“When did he say that? Three hours ago?”

Foreman shrugged.

“I don’t know what you want me to say. Their mother said she was going home with the other brother soon.”

“I’ll be here until Park is done anyways,” Chase slouched as he walked. “I’ll check up on the patients.”

Until then, Chase sat at the desk in his office, mulling over the symptoms.

No encephalitis. It didn’t rule out a virus, but it didn’t prove one, either. He was back to square one.

He started to pace, tossing the tennis ball around.

The truth of the matter was that Chase and his team couldn’t rule out anything. The symptoms were so vague, their timing so random, that the answer eluded everybody.

Once again, he was leaning towards an environmental cause, but he couldn’t think of anything that would only affect the patients and leave everyone else unharmed.

Chase bounced the ball against the wall, catching it with one hand. He was almost in a trance as he fell into the rhythm of the motion. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but eventually, Park opened the office door.

“I have the results,” she announced.

“Hmm?” Chase paused.

Quickly, she walked up to him.

“Negative for thyroid,” she practically shoved the file into his hand, like the paper was contaminating her.

“Right,” he didn’t even look at it, choosing to toss the papers on his desk.

“Sorry,” she frowned like it was her fault. She watched Chase closely for his reaction.

“Go home and get some sleep,” was all he offered her. “We’re going to be here all day tomorrow until we figure this out.”

“Yes. Sure. Of course,” she was eager to leave. “Bye.”

Chase turned back to the wall. He heard the door shut as she left.

His frustration built until he sat down with Doctor Miller later that evening.

“We just can’t figure it out,” Chase explained. “It’s like every time a symptom goes away, another one appears, and nothing seems connected.”

“You’ve been in this position before, no?” Doctor Miller tried to reassure him. “What did you do the last time you had a difficult case?”

“Those cases were different. House was always there,” Chase insisted. “Now he’s not.”

“Do you feel like your medical abilities are somehow compromised without your old boss?”

“No, but…we worked together for so long. Even when I didn’t work for him he was still at the hospital, like a constant presence I could…” he trailed off. “I’m alone now. It’s just me.”

“And your team.”

“I guess, for whatever that’s even worth.” Chase frowned. “It doesn’t even feel like my team.”

“House must have thought you were quite capable, if he let you take over.”

“Well,” Chase stalled for a moment. “He didn’t exactly…I actually quit working for him.”

“Oh?”

“I wanted to prove that I could work without him,” Chase explained. “I was going to leave the hospital.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, because he…died,” the word sounded harsh.

“Hmm,” Doctor Miller nodded along, promping Chase to keep going.

“He burned to death,” Chase gave a factual report. “I know I should have mentioned that weeks ago, but…then I was given the job after he died. So now I have his job, it really doesn’t feel like my job. It’s not my job or my team or my office or my life. It’s his. I still think he might walk through the door one day and tell me to get out of his chair.” Chase was expending a lot of energy to keep his voice steady. “Sorry, I should have said that earlier,” he repeated.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Sorry.” Chase rubbed at the bandage on his wrist where Tommy had scratched him, just so his hands would have something to do. “I don’t know why.”

“Well, I can see why you would feel disconnected from your team,” Doctor Miller didn’t push too hard.

“Yeah.”

“What happened there?” Doctor Miller nodded to Chase’s wrist.

“One of the patients had a psychotic break and scratched my entire arm,” Chase explained.

“I see.”

“And we just can’t-” Chase stopped mid-sentence.

Something had dawned on him.

“Chase?”

“I have to go,” Chase stood up.

“Where-”

“I figured it out.” He grabbed his jacket. “I have to go, I’ll talk to you later,”

“Chase-”

He was out the door.

Chase barely slept that night. He wanted to page Adams and Park immediately, but he resisted the urge. Instead, he lay awake for hours, turning his new theory over in his head. He showed up to work early with coffee.

“Good morning!” He had a big smile on his face as Park walked into the room.

“Hey,” she seemed confused by his change in demeanor from the night before. “What’s going on?”

He handed her a coffee the way she liked it. He had no idea how he remembered her order, but he had a lot of time to think last night.

“I have a new theory.”

“What is it?” She took a sip of coffee.

“We’ll wait for Adams to get here.”

“I’m here,” she had opened the door. “What’s going on?”

“We have a new symptom,” he proudly declared. “There’s coffee on my desk.”

“That’s a symptom?”

“No, that’s your breakfast. But the symptom,” he pulled out a marker and wrote on the now-blank white board in big letters, “is…nail biting. Or lack thereof.”

Park and Adams both looked at each other.

“When we first examined Tommy, his nails were bitten down to stubs,” Chase explained. “But yesterday, they were long enough to do this,” he held up his arm. “So, what causes someone to stop biting their nails?”

“Seriously?” Adams asked. “This is a symptom?”

“Everything is a symptom. Come on, why do people bite their nails?”

“It’s a nervous habit,” Park played along. “People bite their nails when they’re anxious.”

“So why do they stop?” Chase encouraged her.

“They’re not anxious anymore?”

“Exactly.”

He wrote ‘not anxious’ on the whiteboard.

“Since he entered the hospital, Tommy stopped biting his nails,” Chase recapped. “That means he has been less anxious in the hospital than outside of it, which is unusual because most kids are scared of being in the hospital. So something must be happening outside the hospital that’s making him anxious. Does that make sense?”

“Like what?” Park asked. “And how does that relate to his symptoms?”

“I don’t know,” Chase smiled. “But it’s a start. It’s all connected, I just know it. I don’t believe in coincidences. Maybe it’s something with the father? He’s been acting weird, no?”

“Something like abuse?” Adams narrowed her eyes. “Then we have to call CPS.”

“We’re not calling CPS,” Chase shut her down immediately.

“We have to call CPS if we suspect abuse is taking place-”

“We can’t. There’s no proof, they won’t do anything anyways, and they’ll destroy the evidence,” Chase listed his reasons. “CPS is useless.”

“They’re not useless,” Adams insisted.

Chase frowned. He knew this was a hard line for her.

“Don’t call CPS. You know we’ll never figure out the cause of the illness if CPS takes them into custody, and then they’ll still be sick,” Chase tried to use her own guilt against her. “They’re both still in the hospital anyways. Nothing can happen to them here.”

“What about Ryan?” She referred to the oldest sibling.

“He basically lives here now. Just, don’t call. Right, Park?”

“If we’re strictly speaking about diagnosing the patients,” she weighed her options. “I don’t think we should call.”

“Give it a few days,” Chase asked.

“How are we supposed to confirm anything that’s happening outside of the hospital?” She asked.

“We’ll search the house.”

“Again?”

“It’s different. This time, we know what we’re looking for. We’ll go when Monica and Ryan get here.”

………

“We had to confirm the presence of organophosphates in the house,” Chase explained. “Since no students at school were affected, we thought the home was the best place to start. So with their parents' permission, we decided to search their house.”

………

“I can’t believe they keep their side door unlocked,” Adams commented as Chase opened the door and led the group inside. “I’ve heard of that in Iowa or something, but here?”

“It’s weird,” Chase agreed.

The three of them walked into the kitchen. It still had the pleasant aroma of vanilla.

“It’s nice,” Adams observed. “Really clean. What are we looking for, exactly?”

“I’m not sure,” Chase answered, “but I’ll know it when I see it.”

“That’s not helpful.” Adams opened up the trash can. “Someone took it out recently.”

“The bins are next to the garage,” Chase remembered. “We checked them last time, but we didn’t find anything.”

“Is the entire house this clean?” Adams asked.

“All of it. Even the bedrooms…Except for Doctor Kriska’s study.”

“Maybe what we’re looking for isn’t going to be obvious,” Park theorized. “Family problems can be hard to spot.”

“We’ll find something,” Chase knew it. “There has to be some kind of hint, even in a house this clean.”

“Maybe that is the hint,” Adams mused as they all climbed the stairs.

“What?”

“The fact that the house is so clean is itself a distraction. Like the family is trying to fool someone.”

“I doubt Doctor Kriska is cleaning anything,” Chase stopped outside of his office. “Look in here.” He opened the door and revealed the mess.

“So is Mrs. Kr-”

A loud noise caused the floor to vibrate. Someone was opening the garage door.

Chase and his fellows all looked at each other with wide eyes.

“Who is that?” Adams whispered. “I thought they were still at the hospital.”

“No idea,” Chase looked around. They could make a run for the stairs, but they would have to pass the garage door leading into the house.

“What do we do?” Park started to panic. She hated getting in trouble.

As Chase listened to the garage door close, he tried to think of a plan.

It seemed like Mrs. Kriska never went into Doctor Kriska’s study.

“In here,” Chase grabbed both of his fellows and pulled them into the study, shutting the door behind them. “Don’t say anything. Be quiet.”

In the darkness of the study, illuminated only by a few beams of light that shone through the blinds, the three doctors stood quietly.

Chase heard the door leading into the house from the attached garage open and close. A heavy set of footsteps made their way across the first floor.

“It’s Doctor Kriska,” Chase noticed.

“How do you know?” Adams asked.

“You can tell from their footsteps. She wears heels.”

“What’s the point of leaving the side door unlocked if you’re not even going to use it?” Adams murmured quietly.

“He parked the car in the garage,” Chase answered. “That’s why he went in through the garage door.”

“Did he?”

There was a window in the study that faced the front yard.

“Park, go look out the window.”

“What? Why me?”

“You’re the shortest, so people are less likely to see you walking around from outside.”

“Oh, fine.”

Quietly, she made her way across the study and peeked out the window. Then, she walked back.

“He parked in the driveway,” she whispered. “I don’t know why he didn’t use the side door.”

“Are all the doors unlocked?” Adams asked.

“When we were here last time, only the side door was unlocked,” Chase tried to speak as quietly as possible.

“Does anyone hear anything?” Park asked.

The footsteps had stopped.

“We’ll hear the door when he leaves,” Chase noted. “Let’s just be quiet.”

Nobody said anything.

Chase looked around the study. Doctor Kriska had a few books laying around. The one on his desk was about childhood arthritis, but he couldn’t make out any of the other titles.

He used the time locked in the study to wonder why Doctor Kriska would be home in the middle of the day. From what Chase understood, the man was a workaholic. If he had forgotten something at home, surely he would have quickly grabbed it and left. But instead, he was presumably somewhere in the house and, based on the lack of noise, doing nothing.

The minutes ticked by, turning into ten minutes, then half an hour.

Park checked the window. The car was still in the driveway.

By this point, all three of them were sitting down.

“What’s he doing down there?” Adams asked. “Why isn’t he moving?”

“Maybe he fell asleep,” Chase had his eyes closed as he leaned his back against the door.

“Seriously?”

“He looked tired last time I saw him.”

Chase stood up.

“What are you doing?” Park asked.

“He’s not leaving soon, and I’m not keen on sitting here all day. We can at least see where he is.”

“If we get caught, you’re taking the fall,” Adams watched as he put his hand on the doorknob.

“That’s the price I pay for being in charge.”

Slowly, Chase turned the knob and pushed the door open.

Nothing happened.

He looked down the hallway, but he didn’t see anybody. Chase motioned for his fellows to follow him.

Quietly, the group made their way down the stairs. Truth be told, Chase had no idea what would happen if they ran into Liam Kriska. He was still buzzing from the high of his idea earlier that morning. He supposed he could tell Liam that Monica told them to stop by, and to let themselves in through the open side door, but thankfully, it never came to that.

Liam Kriska was sound asleep on a couch in the living room.

He was using a pillow and blanket that looked like it belonged on a bed. This opened up a host of questions from Chase, but his main priority was getting out of that house.

The door to the garage was closer than the side door.

Chase suddenly had a theory.

He twisted the knob, but it was locked. That meant Liam had closed both the garage door and the door that led from the garage into the house.

Chase frowned. Why would Liam Kriska take such care to lock both doors, but not the side door? Unless he had no idea the side door was unlocked, which meant someone else was leaving it open. But who, and why?

Quickly, the group pivoted and crept through the kitchen, leaving through the unlocked side door that Chase quickly shut behind them.

He let out a breath.

“We have to get out of here,” Adams spoke quickly. “Let’s go.”

“Why would someone secretly leave a door unlocked?” Chase wondered.

“What?” Park asked.

“Doctor Kriska locked two doors when he got home. He closed the garage door and he locked the door that leads from the garage into the house. But this side door is open, and if he always locks up, even when he’s home, that means someone else is leaving this one unlocked. And it’s not a one-time thing, because it was unlocked last time,” Chase explained his thinking. “And they use this door pretty frequently because it leads into the mud room, and all of their boots are there. So, someone must be leaving it open on purpose.”

“Are we really doing this here?” Adams stared at him.

“You leave a door unlocked so someone can get inside without a key,” Chase ignored her concern. “Doors are for entering. We know that.”

“And exiting,” Park added, happy to contribute.

“Elaborate?”

“That’s all I have. Sorry.”

“No, I like it,” Chase thought about the broader implication. “You leave the door unlocked if you use it a lot…and unlocking a door can make noise…” the gears were turning in his head. “Maybe someone isn’t entering the house, but leaving, and keeping the door unlocked to be more quiet. So they must be leaving at night when they don’t want to wake anybody up.” He looked around.

“Could Ryan be sneaking out at night?” Adams offered.

“It’s possible,” Chase conceded. He didn’t picture Ryan as the type to sneak out, but he had to be realistic. Everybody lies. “But I wonder why this door? It’s close to the staircase and the bedrooms. Why wouldn’t he choose the back door? Less of a chance of waking anyone up.”

Park kept looking around like Doctor Kriska would appear at any moment.

“There has to be something about this door,” Chase decided. “What’s out here?”

“The trash?” Park noticed.

“We went through the trash…” Chase looked at the bins lined up neatly against the house.

“Hmm,” Adams scanned the area. “What about- oh, what’s that?” She pointed to a small bottle a few yards away. It was in between the Kriska house and the neighbor’s house.

“That’s from the neighbor's trash,” Park pointed out. The neighbors had their trash cans lined up against their house, across from the side door.

Chase walked over to the bottle. A few other pieces of trash had blown over from the wind. The neighbors needed to tie the lids down more tightly.

“It’s…” he crouched down to read the label. “Vanilla extract?”

“There’s another one,” Adams found a matching bottle resting on the grass that had also come from the neighbors’ trash can.

The kitchen always smells like vanilla. Monica always smells like vanilla. Chase felt something heavy in his gut.

“Maybe they’re bakers?” Park offered.

Wordlessly, Chase walked over to the neighbors recycling bin.

“What are you doing?” Adams asked.

He didn’t give himself time to mentally prepare. Instead, he forced the lid all the way open with one arm and looked at the contents of the bin.

It was overflowing with a mix of regular plastic waste combined with empty bottles of vanilla extract, mouthwash, and cough syrup.

Chase understood immediately. He closed the lid and turned to his fellows.

“We’re leaving.”

………

Chase could still remember how he felt when he opened the recycling bin. There was a moment of confusion quickly replaced by overwhelming sadness.

But in this version of events, he didn’t even touch the side door.

“During our search of the house, we noticed the patients’ bedrooms were next to each other. Not only that, but these rooms were noticeably colder than the other two rooms. The parents had suspected the heating system was starting to give out, but what do you all think?”

Chase had tried to present this case so that the students would naturally be led to the correct conclusion.

“Could the air from outside be getting inside?” One of them offered. “The organophosphates could get into their bedrooms.”

“That’s a good theory. But to confirm it, we need to look for a source. Where could we find that?”

“Are there farms nearby?” Someone asked.

“No farms.”

“Fields?”

“No fields…But their neighbor, a nice little old lady, loves to garden.”

A few members of the audience smiled at that.

“Let’s go interview her,” Chase decided. “Sometimes the neighbors have all the answers.”

………

“Sorry, you think she’s drinking all that stuff?” Adams asked when they were back in the office.

Chase was leaning back in his chair, his eyes closed.

“I do.”

“But why? If she’s an alcoholic, wouldn’t she drink, I don’t know, alcohol?”

“Who’s to say she isn’t? Maybe she’s using a different neighbor's garbage can for those bottles,” Chase hummed. “Maybe the son is buying that stuff for her. He’s not old enough to buy real alcohol, so he gets the substitutes. Doesn’t taste as good, but it gets the job done.”

“If his mother’s an alcoholic, why would he buy alcohol for her?”

He chuckled at that.

“Because he’s sixteen, and she’s his mother.”

Chase started to chew at the end of a marker.

“Maybe the father is an alcoholic,” Adams sat down. “He’s the one asleep in the middle of the day.”

“That must be why she always has breath mints,” Chase ignored Adams theory. “Hides the smell on her breath.” He paused. “Liam Kriska is always working. He’s never home. He’d drink out of the house and get rid of the evidence. He was probably asleep because she keeps him up all night.”

“You have no evidence for that.”

“We can test for alcohol abuse by analyzing her hair,” Chase finished. “Don’t tell her, obviously.”

“How does this relate to the patients’ symptoms?” Park wanted to know.

“I’m not sure,” Chase opened his eyes and leaned forward, propping his elbows on his desk. His head was swimming. “I don’t know.”

“Child abuse can take different forms,” Adams stated.

Chase resented her use of the word ‘abuse’, though he couldn’t identify why.

“Maybe,” Adams hesitated, like she was scared to give her theory.

“Just say it.”

“Well, at my old job…” she started to explain. “We had a pro bono clinic. And once or twice I had parents come in with their kids, and the symptoms would make no sense. They would start and stop randomly, we would fix one thing and another thing would start, all that. Eventually, I’d start to catch on and contact local hospitals and see that the parents didn’t need the pro bono help at all. They were just taking their kids to as many doctors as possible…”

“Munchausens by Proxy?” Park understood what she was implying.

“The kids got better when they were away from their mother. That’s all I’m saying.”

Chase considered it.

“The timing makes sense,” he considered. “Every time they’re about to be discharged, something else happens. But I’m not sure.”

“Why not?” Park asked.

“If she drinks that much, to the point where she’s downing vanilla extract at night…to put it simply, she might be too much of a mess to even orchestrate something like this.”

“Could it be the father?”

“He’s never here, unless he’s giving them symptoms remotely. It’s always the mother who’s in the room.” Chase paused. “How would someone induce psychosis?”

“Drugging,” Adams supplied easily. “Hallucinogens. I used to see it all the time.”

“We’ll test their blood for hallucinogens,” Chase ordered. “If it’s positive, we have our answer. And her hair, I should be able to get a strand from her jacket. That will reveal long-term alcohol abuse. But we can’t let her catch on. I’ll go with you.”

Stoically, Chase and his fellows walked towards the patients’ room. Monica and Ryan were sitting there.

Softly, Chase knocked on the door. Monica gestured for them to come inside.

As Chase got a good look at her, he realized she was no longer beautiful. The information he had learned about Monica had ruined his perception of her to a physical extent, leaving him immune to her put-together appearance and blinding smile. Her blonde hair looked like dried out hay. The makeup was tacky. The glimmer in her eyes turned dull. Every component of her had fallen apart.

But he couldn’t let it show.

“We’d like to take a few blood samples,” he said before she could greet him. “We’re going to run some more tests.”

“Oh! Sure,” she agreed.

“Would you like to help us out? You can keep their arms steady.”

“Of course,” she stood up from her chair. She had draped her jacket across the back of it.

Chase had a few files in his hand.

“Sorry,” he smiled apologetically. “Do you mind if I put these on your chair?”

“Go right ahead.”

Ryan was watching Adams and Park take blood samples from his siblings. Chase took advantage of the distraction and picked a few pieces of hair from the hood on Monica’s jacket.

“Alright, we’re all set,” Adams smiled. “How are you guys feeling?”

Chase realized they probably should have led with that.

“Ok,” Tommy was lying back in bed.

“Well, hopefully we’ll have some answers soon,” Adams remained cheerful.

Privately, Chase echoed her hopes.

………

“Fortunately for us, the neighbor was very helpful and cooperative, and let us check the pesticides she used in her gardening. Needless to say, she used way more pesticides than necessary, and it just so happened that the garden was right outside the patients’ bedrooms. But there’s still one more question. Why were the patients having symptoms inside the hospital? How were they being exposed?”

………

Park flung open the door to the office. She was almost out of breath.

“Positive for everything,” she waved the file in her hands. “The kids for LSD, the mother for alcohol.”

“LSD? That’s intense,” Adams took the file and read it over. “And fast-acting. That rules out the father. Someone must have given it to them within the hour.”

“We’re so close to figuring it out,” Chase started to pace, tossing the tennis ball. “She dosed them with LSD, but why?”

“Munchausens by Proxy is hard to prove,” Adams agreed.

“We would have to secretly record them,” Chase decided.

“Is that illegal?” Park asked.

“Not if we suspect abuse,” Chase explained. “We can set up a camera if we have a warrant. But, it takes time, and we need to convince Foreman.”

That was easier said than done.

“Absolutely not. I’m not setting up a secret video camera in a minor’s hospital room,” Foreman shut it down as Chase stood in his office. He had come there to beg.

“But their mother is drugging them with LSD,” Chase insisted. “We need to catch her in the act.”

“Then we can call CPS, and the police, and get a warrant.”

“Why is everybody so obsessed with calling CPS these days?” Chase complained. “We can’t. If she suspects that we’re onto her, she’ll stop, and then we’ll never catch her.”

“Then don’t let her suspect anything.”

“We need to move fast. Who knows what she’ll do next? Give them heroin?”

“I understand that it’s time sensitive,” Foreman tried to be patient. “But you know that I can’t set up a hidden camera without consulting legal counsel, at the very least. If you’re wrong, and they discover we’ve been filming, we’ll get hit with a massive lawsuit, and then everyone loses.”

“I’m not wrong.”

“Then you need to wait,” Foreman insisted. “I’m sorry, I know it’s frustrating, but my hands are tied. We’ll submit the evidence, but until we get an answer, we need to wait.”

Chase was done arguing. He knew that Foreman wasn’t going to budge.

Chase was already thinking of other options.

“Alright. I’ll wait.”

………

“It took us a lot of trial and error, but finally, we figured it out. Their clothes, even the clothes in their closet, had been contaminated with organophosphate. Every time they were about to be discharged, they would put on their clothes and be re-exposed. This also explains the rash, as coming into contact with organophosphates can irritate the skin.” Chase recounted the story. “We decided to treat our patients with the anticholinergic drug Atropine, and voila! They felt better in a number of days.”

Chase smiled at the audience.

“And of course, we asked the neighbor to cut back a bit on the pesticides.”

………

“There’s no way I’m waiting for some judge to issue a warrant,” Chase paced around his office like an animal stuck in a cage. “No way.”

“What are you going to do?” Park asked from her seat.

It was early evening at this point, and the setting sun cast long shadows across the room.

“We’re going to get her to confess. We’ll call her bluff,” he decided.

“How are you going to do that?” Adams narrowed her eyes, sensing that Chase was about to do something unethical.

“If I tell you, you’ll try and stop me. I’m giving you plausible deniability.”

“Do you want us to come with you?” Park asked.

“If you want.”

“I’ll go,” Park agreed. Then, she looked at Adams.

“Fine,” she acquiesced. “Plausible deniability.”

The three of them walked towards the patients’ room. Chase had a file in his hand, but he wouldn’t tell his fellows what it was.

“Monica,” he spoke softly as he stood in the doorway, “could we speak to you alone for a moment?”

She looked nervous. Her eyes flickered between the three doctors.

“Sure,” she answered.

It was normal to be nervous when hearing news from your childrens’ doctors. Chase tried not to read into it.

They took her into the hallway, out of earshot of the patients and Ryan, who was still there.

“What’s going on?” She asked.

“Look, Monica, there’s no easy way to say this…”

“Oh, God,” she put a hand to her mouth. “What? What is it?”

“We think we have a diagnosis,” he explained in a clear, authoritarian voice. “It’s called Jacobsen Syndrome. It’s a parasitic disease that causes brain tissue death.”

“What?” She couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Wha- how?”

“It’s caused by a parasite found in contaminated drinking water. Pesticide use kills off the parasite's natural predator, causing the parasite to flourish,” he described the condition. “The condition itself isn’t unheard of, but your children have an atypical presentation, which has caused the disease to rapidly progress. We need to administer an anti-parasitic drug, but in order to do that, we need to confirm the illness with a brain biopsy. In order words, we need to take a sample of brain tissue from one of the patients,” he extended the file to her. “But there are a few side effects of the brain biopsy. I’ve listed them here.”

She wasn’t listening.

“Oh my God…Oh my God!” She shrieked. “I can’t…I don’t…” she started to hyperventilate. “Oh my God.”

“Monica, we need your permission to do the biopsy. There’s no time, we need to do it now before it’s too late.”

Chase could practically feel Adams’ eyes widening behind him.

“I don’t…” she was losing it. “I don’t know, I can’t, I don’t know,” she was looking around like someone might come and save her. “I need to call my husband.”

“There’s no time,” Chase insisted.

He was impressed with Monica’s commitment to the role. He had anticipated that she would immediately give it up.

“Listen, I can read you the list of side effects, and then you can decide,” he took the file and started to read. “Temporary or permanent paralysis, temporary or permanent blindness, temporary or permanent brain damage-”

“No!” She yelled. By this point, she had started bawling. “I just,” her hands shook. “I can’t-”

“What’s going on?” Ryan had heard the commotion.

Chase frowned. This was a wrench in his plan.

“Ryan, please,” she wailed as she grabbed onto her son’s arm. “Please, I can’t do this.”

“What is it? What’s going on?” He asked Chase.

Chase had come too far. Someone was lying. He couldn’t stand for it.

“We need to perform a brain biopsy on one of your siblings,” Chase explained. “We believe that they have a parasitic infection that’s killing off their brain tissue, but we need a sample of their brain to confirm the diagnosis.”

Ryan had gone pale.

“We need your mother to sign the consent form.”

“Brain biopsy?” Ryan managed weakly.

“We drill into their skull and cut out a piece of their brain,” Chase tried to make it sound gruesome. “There are side effects,” he gave Ryan the list, “but we have to do this. It’s the only thing that would explain all of these symptoms.”

Monica was still wailing.

“Ryan!” She sobbed. “Ryan, you have to do something.”

“Ok, mom,” he tried to calm her down. “Listen-”

“We have to do this now,” Chase insisted. “It’s the best diagnosis we have-”

“Wait, just-”

“Ryan, I can’t!”

“We don’t have time for this,” Chase urged. “We have to go-”

“Don’t, you can’t,” Ryan argued.

“They have a brain parasite-”

“They don’t,” Ryan spoke softly.

“Sorry?”

“They don’t,” Ryan echoed. “They don’t- mom, can you please calm down?” He begged as Monica let out another sob. “Please, I can’t do this, please, stop crying.”

The conversation had taken an unexpected twist.

“What’s going on?” Chase asked.

“There’s no parasite. Just…mom, can you please go wait somewhere?”

“I’ll take her,” Adams offered. “Mrs. Kriska, let’s go sit down. Please, take a deep breath,” Adams slowly led her away.

Free from his mother’s grasp, Ryan rubbed at his wrist where she had grabbed him and took a breath.

Chase quickly looked over at Park, who seemed bewildered. Chase got the sense that Adams was the one who volunteered to take Mrs. Kriska because she had accurately predicted that she didn’t want to hear whatever was about to come out. She had a duty to report. This would be too much.

“Ryan,” Chase spoke softly, then looked around. The hallway was too public. People were staring. “Let’s go talk somewhere else.”

Chase corralled Ryan into a nearby empty room, Park alongside him.

Chase gestured for Ryan to take a seat, while the doctors remained standing. Chase didn’t necessarily endorse intimidation, but it had its uses.

“Listen, Ryan,” Chase started. “Do you know something that might help us cure your siblings? It’s really important that you’re honest with us.”

Chase didn’t want to confront him with the evidence just yet.

“I don’t know,” Ryan refused to look at Chase.

“Really? Because we’re about to do a biopsy on someone’s brain, and that could have permanent side effects. If there’s anything you’re not telling us, we have to know. It could save your siblings’ lives.”

Chase was freestyling at this point. Clearly, Ryan was withholding information, but the exact details were not clear.

Ryan mumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like ‘I can’t.’

Park watched all of this unfold in silence. She knew when to let Chase do his thing.

“Look,” Chase tried his last resort. “I’m going to be honest with you. We already know what’s going on. We know about the LSD. This conversation is a courtesy because I don’t want to call the police.”

That did the trick. Ryan appeared to crumple.

“Now, tell me what happened.”

Ryan started to rub his face with his hands.

“I just didn’t want them to be home with her.”

“With who?”

“Mom,” he exhaled on the word.

“Why not?”

“Because,” Ryan shifted in his chair. “Because...It’s too much for them.”

“Does she have an alcohol problem, Ryan?” Chase asked gently.

He avoided the word ‘alcoholic,’ since people rarely liked to label their family members with that word. They always ‘had an alcohol problem,’ or ‘partied a bit too much.’ Chase had played this game before.

“She tries her best,” Ryan managed to say.

“Ryan,” Chase took a breath. This was it. “Are you telling me that your siblings aren’t actually sick?”

Ryan wiped a few tears from his eyes. Chase waited patiently.

“Are they sick, Ryan?”

Slowly, Ryan shook his head.

Chase heard Park exhale behind him. If she was surprised, she did a great job limiting her reaction to that small gesture.

“Alright,” Chase answered. Then, medical curiosity took over. He asked, “the rash?”

“Stinging nettle,” he was staring intently at the ground, his face flushed. “In their soap. And,” he took a shuddering breath, “animal fur on some stuff I brought for Lucy at the hospital. Neighbor has a dog.”

“The vomiting?”

“Ipecac.”

“LSD?”

Ryan darted his eyes nervously.

“We’re not the police,” Chase reassured him.

“Guy at school.”

Everything fit. Every time the symptoms improved, Ryan would come up with something new. Chase shuddered to think what was going on in that house, but he had an idea.

“Alright,” Chase accepted his answers. “Thank you.”

There was simply nothing else to say. Chase had solved the mystery. Case Closed.

Chase turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” Ryan asked.

“Relax, I won’t turn you in,” Chase brushed past Park. “I’m calling CPS.”

“Wha- you can’t!” Ryan stood up. “Please, you can’t. She doesn’t hit us or anything, it’s really not that bad.”

“You drugged your siblings with LSD. It must be pretty bad.”

“They’ll put us in foster care.”

Chase turned back to face Ryan.

“They won’t. Realistically, CPS isn’t going to do anything.”

That was the downside of illegally-obtained evidence. You couldn’t present it to anyone. Child Protective Services frowned upon doctors breaking into patients’ homes.

“We’re mandatory reporters,” Park stepped in. “We have to call if we suspect abuse.”

“And what are you going to tell them?” Ryan asked.

“You haven’t been to school in a month,” Chase noted. “That’s all we can tell them, if your teachers haven’t done it already.”

Chase was starting to feel a bit sick.

“On record, you’re the biggest danger to your siblings right now,” Chase stopped himself from wincing at his own words. “We can’t prove your mother has done anything, but we can prove that you drugged your siblings.”

“I won’t do anything else to them, I swear, I really didn’t want to,” Ryan was starting to break down into hysterics.

“I know,” Chase had his hand on the doorknob. He couldn’t bear to watch. “You were desperate.”

That was all he could manage. Quickly, he opened the door and left Ryan behind. Park quickly followed him.

“What should we do?”

“Discharge the siblings tomorrow.”

“And Mrs. Kriska-”

“I don’t care. I can’t even look at her,” he was quickly walking down the hallway. “I’m handing this case to you and Adams. Figure it out.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

………

“So in short, when you’re dealing with vague symptoms that seem to appear randomly, the key is patience. Sometimes all it takes is one symptom to make the other ones slide into place,” Chase concluded his lecture. “Thank you all for your time.”

The med students politely applauded as he left the stage.

He thought it went pretty well, at least compared to last year.

………

It might have been the cowards way out, but Chase stuck to his word when he said his fellows would be taking over. He just couldn’t do it. He could handle brain surgeries on infants, flesh eating diseases, and every flavor of gruesome injury, but the thought of spending any more time with that family caused a jolt of primal anxiety to tear through his entire body. It wasn’t happening.

Chase heard most of the fallout secondhand.

Adams and Park discharged the kids, claiming they found a cure for whatever they said was wrong. The mother was too relieved to question it, and Ryan knew better than to say anything. He let Adams call CPS, but they never found out what came of it. Once a doctor makes the call, CPS takes over and doesn’t give updates. It was a curse for the nosy and curious.

Chase tried to move on from these unanswered questions, but one of them kept ringing around in his head.

“I wonder if he suspected anything,” Chase took a bite of chicken fried rice. He was sitting in Foreman’s office where the two of them had ordered takeout.

Foreman didn’t need to guess who Chase was talking about. Chase had been prone to mentioning the case every now and then, even though it had been resolved several weeks ago.

“Doctor Kriska?”

“Hmm.” Chase took another bite. “We ended up saying they were suffering from a virus. There’s no way he believed that, right?”

“People will believe all sorts of things if it means the problem is fixed. Especially if it’s an easy fix.”

“Well, thanks again, for letting us handle it how we did.”

Foreman poked at a piece of chicken inside a takeout box.

“All of your evidence was obtained illegally. There was nothing I could do anyways.”

“But still, with the blood tests…”

“I didn’t want to send that kid to jail,” he shrugged, then took a bite.

“Guess you’re not such a heartless bastard.”

“Lucky for you.” Foreman chewed. “But I’m glad you called CPS.”

“Ah, that was just a favor to you. We saved you the phone call.”

“I’m sure. It definitely wasn’t because you cared.”

“Hey, I was legally obligated.”

The two of them ate for a moment.

“You know,” Foreman added. “Well,” he hesitated. “I just wanted to say-”

“Don’t get all soft-”

“I know that was a difficult case for you-”

“No-”

“Let me finish. I’m sure it was difficult for you, and you did a good job. Don’t worry, I’m saying that as your boss, not as your friend. I don’t care either way.”

“Well,” Chase tapped his chopsticks against the white takeout box, “that’s good to hear.” He paused again, and in a much quieter voice said, “thank you.”

They went back to eating.

………

“Good job,” Foreman nodded his approval when Chase met him after the lecture. “I almost ran up there and took your microphone, but I’m glad to see I didn’t have to.”

“I faked you out, didn’t I?” Chase smiled.

“It was better than last year,” Adams complimented him.

“I keep setting the bar higher.” He turned to Park. “Did you like your shoutout?”

“Not really,” she smiled anyways. “Well, a little bit. It’s nice to get credit.”

“Get ready for next year. I’ll have you all act out the case. I’ll bring costumes.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a promise.”

………

A few nights after his dinner with Foreman, Chase was working late in his office. He had a new case, a man with liver failure symptoms but no actual liver failure, and he was reading over a textbook. One case ends, another begins. He sent his fellows home for the night, but he didn’t mind staying late.

Someone knocked on the glass door of his office. Chase looked up to see Doctor Kriska standing there.

His first thought was that Liam was about to serve him papers. When he saw that his hands were empty, he braced himself for a shouting match.

Chase stood up from his desk. If they were going to fight, he wasn’t keen on shutting himself into a room with the man.

“Doctor Kriska,” Chase offered.

“Doctor Chase,” Liam nodded.

He didn’t look particularly angry.

Chase opened the door.

“What can I do for you?”

“Oh, I was just here following up on a patient who was admitted, and I figured I would stop by and see you.”

It was a decent cover, but obviously a lie.

“Why don’t we go on a walk?” Liam asked.

“Sure.”

Chase left his office, accompanying Liam as the two of them walked down the hallway.

“How is everything with you, Doctor Chase? Any new cases?”

“We just started on a new one,” he tried to make conversation. “It’s a puzzle.”

“Well, I’m sure you can handle it.”

Chase wasn’t sure what to say. He listened to the sound of their footsteps.

“How are you, Doctor Kriska?”

The man let out a soft chuckle at that. Evidently, he was not doing well.

“Oh, we’re doing alright. The kids are doing well. My wife, she’s…away for a bit.”

“Rehab?” Chase couldn’t stop himself from asking.

Doctor Kriska didn’t miss a beat.

“I guess you’re as good as they say you are.”

The two of them kept walking.

“I’m not mad you called CPS, by the way.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“I understand why you did it. They didn’t have much to say, of course. But thank you for not- whatever the cause of the illness was…thank you for handling it how you did.”

Doctor Kriska’s words made it seem like he knew what had happened, but he wouldn’t say it outright. Plausible deniability.

“I’m glad she’s getting help,” Chase responded without addressing the comment. “Do you think she’ll get better?”

“Hmm,” Doctor Kriska considered it. “No, I don’t. Do you?”

“No,” Chase answered honestly. “They only get better when they want to get better, not when someone else is making them.”

“You seem to be speaking from experience.”

“Something like that.” Chase wasn’t going elaborate.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too.”

“Well,” Doctor Kriska stopped things from getting any more vulnerable. “I just wanted to stop by and say thank you. You did a great job. I have to admit I was worried about the quality of the department when House left,” Kriska vaguely alluded to House's death, “but obviously my worries were unfounded.”

“You ever meet him?” Chase was curious.

“A few times,” Doctor Kriska nodded. “He called me an idiot at a conference a few years ago.”

Chase couldn’t help but smile.

“That sounds about right.”

“But I can see why he left you the department.”

“He didn’t really,” Chase felt the urge to explain.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Even from my limited interactions with him, I can say with absolute certainty that you wouldn’t be in charge of this department if he didn’t want that to happen. You’re right where you’re supposed to be.”

“Oh. Thanks,” Chase felt a bit embarrassed.

“Well,” Doctor Kriska said what he needed to say.

He turned to look at Chase. For a moment, Chase thought he might add something else. Maybe he would give some explanation as to why his family was in such disarray, and why he had failed to prevent what ultimately ended up happening.

But Doctor Liam Kriska had an image to uphold. There could be no cracks in the exterior.

“I’ll be off, then.”

“Goodbye, Doctor Kriska.”

“Goodbye, Doctor Chase. Thank you again.”

And that was the last Chase heard of that family. He would receive no further updates.

That didn’t stop him from addressing it one more time, in Doctor Miller’s office the next afternoon.

“I should have done better on that case,” Chase sighed.

“Which one?” Doctor Miller glanced quickly over his notes.

“With the brother who poisoned his siblings.”

“Ah, yes,” Doctor Miller remembered. “Why do you think that?”

“There were a lot of things that I missed,” Chase recounted the details of the case. “I was off my game. I’m usually good with kids, but I feel like I barely interacted with the patients. Maybe if I had…and with the mother…I had a blindspot, for some reason. And I should have figured it out right away.”

“Why do you feel that way about this particular case?”

“There were…parallels,” he decided on the word, “that I had seen before. Experienced before.”

“You saw things from your own life show up in this case?”

“Exactly, but I couldn’t recognize those things for what they were.”

“Any idea as to why?”

“Oh, it’s like what you said,” Chase slumped against the couch cushions. “I ignored the past, and it came back to bite me in the future. My own mother…she was,” he paused before saying the dreaded words, “an alcoholic. And she was so similar…I couldn’t see what was right in front of me. It hurt my ability to do my job.”

“Do you think that working through the past might help you to be a better doctor?”

Chase considered this question. He knew the answer was yes, but he resented that fact.

Doctor Miller asked him another question.

“What’s stopping you?”

“It’s just hard, I guess,” Chase suddenly struggled to speak. “And it’s sad. It’s ugly.”

“Maybe so.”

“I hate talking about it,” he managed to say. His eyes had become misty.

Doctor Miller let Chase take a moment.

“I want to be a good doctor.”

“You are a good doctor.”

“I want to be even better,” he blinked the mist from his eyes and sighed. “And I guess this is what I’m paying you for.”

That got a smile from Doctor Miller.

“Alright,” Chase took another breath. He hated when Foreman was right.

“Alright?”

“Alright,” Chase made up his mind. “I’m ready to talk.”