feel as if i'm wasting.

[theorized]

Even without heading diagnostic medicine, House's presence still has a notable effect on Darrow General. He should have known that House wouldn't stay unemployed for long. His yearn for the puzzle was always too great, pushing him to further and further lengths, even those that weren't necessarily good for his own well-being. When word got out that someone was causing a fuss over the new forensic pathologist at the hospital, Chase didn't even need to ask.

The name: Gregory House.

Unearthing mistake after mistake made by the doctors at Darrow General has resulted in everything from angry threats of lawsuits to panic over one's own capabilities as a doctor. The only person who's been unaffected on a personal level is Chase.

Now they're forwarding him cases that have no right to be in diagnostics.

It makes the job a hell of a lot less interesting, but he's tied to it more than ever these days, with the blizzard bringing in a higher number of people than usual. Only when he's starting to push three full days at the hospital does Chase meaningfully step out at last, just to the small café by the entrance of the hospital.

"Coffee, please?" he asks the server before slumping into his seat, staring down at the menu options.

Comments

[jianhuo]

She knows he's in Darrow; even if she hadn't heard before it would have been hard to miss seeing him around when she'd been stuck in quarantine for a week. Chase isn't someone she knew all that well on the island, though as two of the longer term residents they knew each other, of course. Saffron also knows, though, that this Chase doesn't remember the island, just like House doesn't remember it.

She's stepped into the cafe for something to warm her up a little when she spots him, sitting alone. Saffron orders a tea for herself and intercepts the waitress when she brings out Chase's coffee, bringing it instead to his table herself and setting it in front of him before sitting across from him with her own mug and a soft smile. "Hello, Doctor Chase."

[theorized]

He glances up, catching an immediate flash of red hair where there wasn't any prior, gaze darting over to where the waitress he spoke to is heading back to pick up more orders to pass around the café. Committing the waitress to memory, simply to make sure he doesn't neglect to give her a proper tip, Chase offers a small, polite smile as a vaguely familiar face seats herself across from him at the table. She looks different now, having had months to recover fully from the attack, but Chase's memory for patients is fairly good, especially for those who were quarantined over the period of the outbreak.

While he kept a distance from them to think, Chase doesn't operate in quite the same way House does.

"Hello," he replies, nodding his thanks for the coffee and setting it closer to himself. "Helen, isn't it? I haven't seen you in quite some time; you look well."

[jianhuo]

"It is, and thank you," Saffron replies. "I'm definitely feeling much better than the last time you probably saw me. How've you been? Keeping busy at the hospital, I'd guess."

[theorized]

"This time of year is usually pretty busy, but it's been worse since the blizzard," Chase nods with a slight smile, sipping at his coffee once before shaking out a couple of sugar packets and dumping them in, mixing them with his spoon. "A lot of accidents, trauma's needed extra hands. I haven't left the hospital properly in days."

[jianhuo]

Saffron listens attentively, taking a sip of her tea. "That can't be easy on you, that kind of schedule," she comments, her hands curling around the warm mug. "Is the hospital understaffed?"

[theorized]

"Most hospitals are, if having upper management sweep around the clinic is your idea of understaffed," Chase replies with a slight tilt of his head. He's not bothered by it — if anything, working clinic hours makes him feel good, having jobs that are far more sure and contain far less risk. They also give him a rare chance to socialize with patients without that being a risk all its own. "Especially during difficult times like these. The fact that healthcare is socialized here only makes the queue longer than what I was accustomed to, where I'm from. When you don't have to pay out of pocket... well, you don't hesitate to get your share. I don't blame people for it in the slightest, but it does make our lives busy."

[jianhuo]

"I reckon it would," Saffron replies. She's never lived in a place or time where she had to pay out of pocket for healthcare, so she doesn't really have anything to compare it to, but she's heard stories from people who lived on Earth-that-was in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. "How is House doing? I haven't seen him since he first showed up."

[theorized]

Save for people who stroll by his office on a regular basis, Chase is pretty sure that he hasn't given off the impression as someone with a close connection to Gregory House; the question calls forth a slight quirk of his brow, mostly confusion and slight wariness. While not out of the realm of possibility, having someone other than House himself bring up the connection still breaks away from the norm. Maybe there's a reason.

"Excuse me?" he asks, tilting his head.

[jianhuo]

"Sorry, that probably seemed a little out of the blue, didn't it," Saffron said with a vaguely sheepish smile. "Doctor, have you heard about how some of the folks here were on an island before they came to Darrow?"

[theorized]

Eyes narrowing slightly in confusion, Chase holds his stance carefully, neither leaning forward nor back as he fights the sudden tension in his shoulders. The notion of there being other levels, other states of limbo, isn't any more far-fetched than the city of Darrow is itself.

Still, usually he's the one to make discoveries for himself.

"No, I can't say that I have."

[jianhuo]

"Before this place, several of us were on an island, similar to Earth's Hawaii from what I hear," Saffron explains. "We called it Tabula Rasa, and the principle was the same as Darrow - folks arrived there without warning and were stuck until they disappeared again, just as sudden. Some of us remember it completely, some don't remember at all, and some are somewhere in between. I'd been there four and a half years when I fell asleep on the beach and woke up on the train into Darrow. House was there as well, though he doesn't remember. You were too, matter of fact."

[theorized]

Right, Chase almost says, though he takes the time to sip from his steaming mug of coffee instead, brows pulling together in contemplation — if he voices his mind right now, no doubt it'd come off too skeptical, too cynical, impolite in a way that Chase has been trained not to be. Blunt in a way that he only is with his closest friends and colleagues.

It's not the that thought is any more implausible than the existence of Darrow, from the vantage point of someone who had only ever lived a linear life on Earth, but there are leaps of logic that Chase feels discomfited by. Every take on what Darrow is requires some premature conclusions, including his own, but some are far easier for him to grasp.

"Or maybe some of us simply weren't there," he replies evenly. "If you ascribe to the many-worlds interpretation."

[jianhuo]

"That's definitely possible," Saffron agrees. "Some version of you and House were there, but not you specifically." Considering how many folks came and went from the island, never remembering if they came back, it's definitely a thought she's considered before, and she knows she's not the only one. It seems far less messed up that way, at least in terms of how much influence some unseen presence may have in their lives.

[theorized]

Her agreement allays some knot in the center of his chest, in the same way that approval regarding his views has always settled Chase somewhat, the effect of reassurance on a man who's never felt entirely solid on his views. It's easier to mold himself around others. Pressing his lips together, he takes another sip of his coffee, gaze dropping for a few seconds.

"Occam's razor. It feels like a simpler explanation," Chase says quietly, stirring at the sugar still collected at the bottom of his cup.

[jianhuo]

Saffron nods. "It does," she says. She wouldn't say she prefers simple as a rule, it really depends on the situation - sometimes complications can be pretty damn fun. But in this case, simple is probably better. They get enough twists in their day-to-day lives as it is.