Hey! I'm kind of (REALLY) late to both House, M.D and fanfiction but I love them both and I've stalked them for quite a while now.

That being said, I do hope that there are some people who are still around to read this.

Happy Reading. xx

The figure sitting on the chair behind the desk in his room had a very familiar outline and Robert Chase froze the minute he entered.

The door was two inches behind him but he couldn't move. He couldn't even scream- his lungs and throat seemed not to be functioning and there was no-one around to hear him at 1.00 in the morning.

He heard the tap of wood against wood and paled.

"I've died," the Australian said numbly. "I've died and gone to Hell. That's the only explanation." He could hear the rising hysteria in his voice but, at least in this scenario, he felt he was justified.

"I find it offensive," the figure drawled and Chase took a sharp intake of breath at the sound of the voice, "that you don't think I could make it to Heaven. I did save a lot of lives."

"Yeah-and you were a right bastard for the remaining 90%."

He didn't mean to snap. The voice was familiar, patronizing, egging him on and Chase was hoping- and at the same time knew he was going insane.

"Why are you here?" he said, instead, fiercely. He didn't care to know who the imposter was but he needed to know the reason for the visit. He squashed down any other notions of celestial beings.

"Why am I here? Well, that's a stupid question. This was my office; I noticed the sign on the door."

And Chase walked toward the desk, shakily, and collapsed in the chair on the other side and slowly, trembling, flicked on the light.

"Oh my god- House."

Any thought of an imposter has escaped him for no-one could imitate the blue of House's eyes, the penetrating gaze that always saw far too much.

"Astute as ever, Wombat. Nothing escapes you, does it?"

Chase's eyes roved over his ex-boss, taking in the uneven, days-old stubble; the sunken cheeks; the thing frame; the loose clothes.

"I thought you were dead!"

"As you were supposed to. I did just call you astute."

"Fuck." Chase closed his eyes-remembered the black funeral, the ache in his chest, the mysterious resignation of Wilson, Wilson's cancer- and suddenly all the pieces clicked into place and Chase looked at House.

He knew.

"Wilson-"

"Dead. Dead and gone and never coming back." House got up, all his weight on his cane, and popped more white pills than Chase remembered him taking into his mouth.

"Is there going to be a funeral?" Chase knew he was treading on thin ice but damn if he needed to hear his boss speak, needed to know what had happened.

"Yes. Wilson had thousands of admirers, weird because he often told them they, or their loved ones, were dying."

Chase almost smiled at the scorn but said, "Only thing that matters is who he loved, right?"

And Chase realized how broken the older man was when all House did was look at him and for a moment he entertained morbid thoughts of House committing suicide and having an actual dead body to deal with but the panic faded when House's acerbic wit reared up to bite him in the ass.

"Leave the sentimental speeches to your ex-wife, pretty boy."

House's eyes had enough life and intelligence to keep him afloat- not swimming, but drifting for Chase can't imagine House without Wilson.

"Why are you here?" he repeated.

House preformed an exaggerated eye-roll; Chase reached out for the ball on the table before he saw it balancing precariously on House's cane.

"You kept the ball." It was not a question, and House was not done. "I've loved what you've done to the place."

Nothing, except the name on the door, had changed.

"I thought I wanted a complete redecoration because everything here reminded me of you but then I realized that you made me. So- why not. Keep you around for a while, at least."

House looked at him curiously and Chase blinked innocently back.

And, finally, House surprised him with an honest answer, "I just wanted to see the place."

And then Chase knew that the hole Wilson had left would never be filled; this room was to House what it was to him: the stimulus of his growth.

House's longest fellow stared at him intently.

Cameron may have loved the man, Foreman may have respected him but Chase understood him.

So he uncapped a marker, pulled over the whiteboard and gestured to his current patient's list of symptoms.

He was interrupted before he started. "I'm not returning."

"Really? You lost Wilson and your brains?"

It was cruel; it was cruel and mean and challenging and House responded the way Chase expected him to: by narrowing his eyes and making his way to the board, scoffing at the paltry diagnosis that had been scrawled in the corner, Lupus.

"It's never Lupus, you idiot. Did you test for Guillain-Barré?"

"We did an LP but it was inconclusive. CSF analysis was normal. EMG showed nothing. What about-"

At one point House smiled and Chase caught it and smiled back but House glared so Chase cleared his throat and suggested sarcoidosis which House dismissed with a sneer.

And thus the curtain closed the way it had opened: with a patient, a whiteboard, Chase, House, and a differential diagnosis.

(Wilson approved.)

END.

Not much to say here. Just read and review, please.