mood: tense
last night's sleep rating: D
rounds: this morning
who was late? Chase


I've been reading journal articles online -- two and a half whole hours, and still no cure for cancer! Obviously a complete waste of time.

I've spent too much time in one position and I'm starting to get really stiff. I take a Vicodin, ease myself out of the chair and start to pace a little bit and toss the yo-yo.

This thing with Vogler.... I can't see my way out of it yet. There's got to be a way, though. There's got to be.

This afternoon I called one of the docs on the Education Committee on the pretense of confirming Chase's date for M&M. I dropped a hint that things were up in the air with our department -- budget cuts and all -- and that if Chase "couldn't make it" that I might send Cameron or Foreman. That was pretty cooperative and proactive of me, wasn't it? And it had precisely the intended effect -- he was so completely disoriented (House? volunteering information?!) that when I asked him if it were true that M&M was going to be cut, he actually had to stop and think.

"No? Oh, what a relief!" I said. "But it is true that there's no more budget for refreshments, right? Really? Well, that's what I heard, and it made a lot of sense to me -- if there's no money for fellows, it would certainly make sense that there's no money for doughnuts. Well, if you say so. Thanks."

I'll have to keep seeding that rumor.

It's been a quiet afternoon. The kids aren't flying out at each other like they were last week -- there was a particularly loud blowout on Friday -- but this icy silence is almost worse. Cam's working at the computer in the corner, Foreman's on one corner of the table, and he's got his stuff spread out forcing Chase into the opposite corner.

I almost can't look at Chase. I had that dream again last night, and the image of him striking Cameron -- and then looking back at me with such defiance -- keeps coming back at odd moments. I wish I could get it out of my head.

Another toss of the yo-yo. I make it spin at the end of the string, staring at it, letting my mind drift in the blur, before I summon it back up the string to my cupped hand.

It angers me to see Chase turning on the other two like this, particularly Cam. When she first came, he was so good to her. For a long time I thought he was sweet on her.

Chase came a year, year and a half ago. It had been a while since I'd had any fellows in the department and Cuddy had gotten on my case about hiring. I'd been dragging my feet, but finally Wilson cleared his throat and reminded me that if I didn't hire, Diagnostics would lose its funding and I would be absorbed into someone else's department.

So that was how Chase came to PPTH. I hired him in spite of his dad's phone call; Chase in person was so intriguingly different from the Chase I'd expected. But no matter how carefully he cultivated that laid-back "whatever" persona, flashes of intelligence kept shining through. He was actually listening when I told him things.

Well, he was getting on well in the habitrail, but I thought I'd better get him a friend (well, it was either that or lose the funding) -- someone with a different temperament, so they wouldn't both want to run the scamper wheel at the same time. Enter Cameron.

The two got along swimmingly. But I had never thought of Chase as the mentor type until one horrible afternoon, when Cam had been there about a couple of weeks. We'd had days and days of looming rain that never actually came. My leg was killing me, and my back, hip, and shoulder wanted in on the action, so I was spending a lot of time holed up in my office. I had even accepted a case to give them something to do. But I had forgotten that the same determination that had piqued my interest in Cameron could be a serious liability on days I wanted to be left alone.

I had my back turned to the office door, with my feet propped up on the bookshelf. I knew Chase was working in the conference room. Cam was looking in at the patient and was going to swing by the lab.

She must have come in bearing results. I heard her saying something like Look at these, this is great, we gotta show House.

Chase's voice grew louder, as if he were moving closer to the door. "Oh no. Oh no. I would not go in there if I were you."

"But he's going to want to see this, the patient--"

"No."

I listened carefully; it sounded like he might be physically blocking the door.

"I'm telling you, Cameron! If it's good news, you wait until he tells you he's ready to hear it. Especially on days like today. On days like today, you don't bother him unless the patient crashes. "

"What's a day like today? Thursday?" I could practically hear her nose wrinkling. She was so cute when she was sarcastic.

"Didn't you see?"

Silence from Cam. She was probably staring at him.

"Grab some paper and I'll show you." I heard his voice fade; he must have been getting coffee -- no, the microwave was beeping, he must have been making tea or cocoa.

I heard them sitting down. "Okay," Chase said. "House is pretty easy to work with as long as you know when to leave him alone. And the best way to figure that out is by this little index here I've devised. Like, right now his index is... a 2.7. That's not so great. The bigger the index, the worse it is. Best I can imagine is a 0.25. If he ever had that, that'd be the day to ask for a raise or ask him to help you move. But I've never seen that."

I was about ready to bust. A numerical index? Leave it to the intensivist! Next thing I knew he'd want to stick some kind of wire into my brain to measure my serotonin and dopamine levels.

Cam sounded just as astounded. "This... Chase, this is bizarre! How did you come up with this?"

"Trial and error. Had to come up with some kind of objective measure."

Cam laughed. "So how do you, uh, calculate this?"

"Well, part of it's subjective. You take a reading of how he looks first thing in the morning -- you know, his affect, his general presentation -- including whether he's late or not. If he looks really well rested, he's here on time? That's a one. If he looks like he did this morning -- almost late, eyes a little red, straight for the coffee but said good morning on the way-- that's a four. If he's really listing to the right or gets coffee before he comes in -- or hides in his office before he comes out for coffee -- that's a five, that's the worst.

"You multiply that by his med ratio: how many times you've seen him take a Vicodin over how many hours. Like today, he's been here six hours and I've seen him take four pills. So four pills, over six hours, times a morning rating of four gives you an index of 2.67. Here."

"Oh my God, Chase, you've plotted this out for three months?! What's this highlighter -- hiring?!"

"Yeah. It runs from the day he told me he was going to hire someone to the day you called to accept. I was SO glad that day. See the drop there?"

"And you really... calculate this?"

"The numbers don't lie."

She fell silent; presumably she was gawking over Chase's flowheet. I decided it was time to check on our patient's progress, so I took a Vicodin and gave it a little time to kick in. I made sure to make some noise before I came out, to prompt Chase to put his flowsheet away.

I tried calculating the index myself for a few days and using it to gauge Chase and Cameron's behavior. After a while I quit, though -- counting Vicodin bored me. I don't think Chase himself has done the index for a while; he may have quit even before Foreman got here. The sleep component proved helpful, though; it made my insomnia a little less frustrating when I realized that I was having some nights that were at least better than others. So that idea lives on in the sleep rating.

I drop the yo-yo again and watch it spinning, spinning... Damn Vogler and his $100 million. I want my department back.