March 12

There had been times in his life that Chase had truly surprised himself and this was one of them. He had decided to attend to his need to at least attempt to mend his spiritual life. This meant actively taking a step to reach out for help which was a stark contrast to the help that had been thrust upon him throughout this ordeal. Chase knew this was not something he could do alone, nor was it something he could do with House or Wilson or Cameron or even Johnson.

Once he knew for certain that he was going to find someone to talk to, the hardest decision had been whether or not to seek guidance from a Catholic priest or to abandon the denomination, at least for now. He opted for trying another denomination.

Chase recalled the lyrics of a song he had heard a few years ago. It said something about being as empty as a church on Monday morning. They weren't kidding, he thought. There were four cars in the massive parking lot of the Grace Baptist Church and two of them were parked so far from the entrance that he thought they may have belonged to people who just left them there for the day while carpooling with someone else.

He was anxious about meeting in person the pastor he had spoken to over the phone, but it was a different kind of anxiety than he had felt when going to see Dr. Johnson. He was nervous, but also almost excited. Instead of twisting in knots, his stomach felt as though it were housing a thousand butterflies.

He parked and saw that the side entrance of the church was marked "Office." He pulled on the door handle only to find that it was locked. He initially found it odd that a church would have its doors locked, but he supposed they needed to protect themselves from unseemly types who might try to exploit the ministry. He could not blame anyone for utilizing as much security as possible.

He rang the doorbell and waited. Through the glass door, he saw a middle-aged man emerge from a hallway. The man was dressed in navy pants and a matching blazer, a pale green shirt, and a deep green tie covered in scenes of Sylvester and Tweety Bird. And they make fun of my wardrobe, Chase thought.

The man smiled warmly, making eye contact through the glass as he unlocked the door and pulled it open. "Good morning!" he greeted Chase cheerfully. "How can I help you?"

Chase averted his eyes from the friendly stranger. "I have an appointment with Brother Harry Earls," he answered softly, his nerve wavering.

The man extended his hand. "I'm Harry Earls," he said. "You must be the young man I spoke with Friday afternoon."

Chase nodded, shaking the hand that was offered to him as he introduced himself. Somehow the statement made it sound like he was the only young man the pastor had spoken to on Friday. Maybe there were not that many lost souls actively seeking salvation lately. He stepped inside the church and Brother Earls locked the door. Chase felt his heart jump as he heard the clicking sound. He shook away the memory of the clinic door being locked, wondering why the sound had brought back memories this time. He had certainly heard doors being locked since the attack.

"Come with me," Brother Earls directed. He put one hand squarely against Chase's back to guide him to walk beside him instead of behind him.

Chase felt his shoulders tense and he came to a stop. He reminded himself that the man did not know why he was there. Maybe I should have told him. Or maybe I need to learn to have normal reactions to normal actions instead of needing everyone to treat me like a victim, he snapped at himself. He walked on, seeing that a large office was just a few steps away.

The pastor closed the office door, ensuring their privacy. "Please have a seat," he said, motioning broadly.

Chase saw that he could choose one of two chairs placed in front of the minister's desk or a comfortable looking burgundy leather couch against the wall. The couch would give him a view of an aquarium that held several brightly colored saltwater fish. The chair would put a safe distance between himself and the other man. He chose the chair, expecting Brother Earls to take the high back executive chair behind the desk.

Instead, he sat down in the other chair, perhaps only a foot away from Chase. "So, Robert-may I call you Robert?" he asked.

Chase nodded. He saw several framed diplomas, licenses, and certificates on the wall behind the desk. Harry Earls was a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Licensed Professional Christian Counselor in addition to having a Bachelor's and Master's degree. Judging from the framed photographs, he was married, had two adult children, and an infant granddaughter.

Brother Earls continued, "You mentioned that you had some questions about sin and accountability."

Chase nodded again. It seemed his voice had decided to go on holiday again.

"Before we get to that, can you tell me about yourself? You're not from around here, I suspect."

Chase shook his head. His mouth felt very dry. "Australia," he answered softly, then cleared his throat. Two months had passed and his voice still was not what it had been pre-injury.

Brother Earls got up, "Where are my manners today?" he asked. He went to a black small refrigerator that was so unobtrusive Chase had not even noticed it when he first scanned the room. He retrieved two bottles of water which he brought back and set on coasters on his desk.

Chase was a little surprised by the gesture, but figured the preacher was acting normally since there were already coasters in place. He did not magically know that Chase had problems with his voice. "Thanks," he said.

"You know, back home, I'd offer you some fried chicken, potato salad, and sweet tea," Brother Earls joked.

Chase laughed, genuinely amused by the notion. "So you're not from around here either?" he asked. He thought he had detected a slight Southern accent.

"No, I'm originally from Georgia."

"How'd you wind up in Princeton?" Chase asked, finding it much easier to speak since he was talking about someone else. He swallowed some of the water.

"I had a church in Nashville for a while. About three years ago, one of the members of this congregation visited while on business. Grace was looking for a minister at the time and he asked if I would be interested in relocating-he was part of the pastor search committee. I told him I would at least come for a visit. When I got here, it was a perfect fit. I knew moving was the right thing to do."

"Oh," Chase nodded. "You like it here?"

"Not the winters, but I'm in the right place. It's where God wants me to be."

"How do you know?" Chase quizzed. "That it's what God wants?" His own life might have taken a different course if he had ever been able to discern the answer to that question for himself.

"I'm at peace with the decision," Brother Earls answered without hesitation.

Chase thought over his answer. "Must be nice," he replied. Talking with Brother Earls was already quite different from talking to Dr. Johnson. He suspected he already knew more about Brother Earls than he would ever know about the psychiatrist. "I agree about the winters," he added.

"How about yourself? How does a young man from Australia wind up in New Jersey?"

"Work," Chase answered. "I came for a diagnostics fellowship at Princeton Plainsboro."

"You're a doctor?" Brother Earls concluded.

"Yes," Chase answered before taking another sip of water.

"So that makes you a… diagnostician?" he sounded as though he had to take time to consider a proper title to go with the focus of the fellowship.

"I'm an intensive care specialist, actually. I'm working on the diagnostician part. My boss is probably the best in the world."

"Best boss?" Brother Earls asked.

"Best diagnostician," Chase corrected, but felt a little guilty. "Don't get me wrong, he's been incredibly good to me but he can be difficult to work with." Chase thought about the kindness House had shown him. "He's a good man."

"How long have you been in the States?"

"Almost four years."

"So, what kind of questions do you have?" Brother Earls asked.

Chase started picking at the paper label on the plastic bottle. The pastor had made him fairly comfortable but the last question made him tense again. Despite having a firm grasp on the reason he had sought this man's counsel, he dreaded having to reveal what had happened. "I, um." He paused as he pressed the paper against the adhesive still left on the bottle. He decided to change his approach. "Did you happen to see the news a couple of months ago about the doctors being held hostage in the clinic at Princeton Plainsboro?"

"Of course. It was a huge story. If I remember correctly, it broke on a Friday or Saturday because the congregation was stirred up about crazy gunmen being on the loose that weekend."

Chase looked down at the crooked label. "I'm one of the doctors." He did not fail to notice that the congregation had been upset that weekend. For the rest of the world, life had gotten back to normal by the time Monday rolled around. The crazy gunmen were still on the loose and Chase knew in his heart that any hope of capturing them had vanished. He would be looking over his shoulder the rest of his life.

"Oh," Brother Earls took a deep breath. "If I recall, one of the doctors was sexually assaulted."

Chase did not look up, "Raped."

"I'm so sorry that one of you went through that," Brother Earls said compassionately. He patted Chase's hand.

"It was me." Chase revealed, pleased with himself for not jerking his hand away from the other man's reach.

"What can I do to help you through this?" Brother Earls asked earnestly, not even batting an eyelash at the revelation.

Chase found it impossible to look at the other man even though there was compassion in his tone. "I need to be forgiven," he whispered.

"Forgiven?" Brother Earls questioned. "For what?"

"I'm not sure," Chase answered. "I feel so… I'm not sure what to confess." He tilted the bottle in his hand forward, watching the water level shift.

"You were raped. There's no sin in being raped."

Chase looked up at that, "How do you know?"

The pastor reached for a Bible that was on his desk and turned to a passage in Deuteronomy and read aloud, "If in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case. When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her."

Chase considered the verse, searching his memory for the passage. "But doesn't that go on to say that if the girl wasn't engaged already, the man has to pay for her and then she has to be his wife?"

"Well, yes," Brother Earls answered, clearly surprised that Chase was aware of the text.

"I'm not trying to be argumentative," Chase apologized, knowing it probably would have been much easier for Brother Earls if he had not questioned the rest of the passage. "I just don't understand the contradiction. If she has no sin, why does she have to suffer the rest of her life over an act someone else committed? It's like she is marked forever by what he did to her. She has no rights at all. He took them away and she's stuck with him if they don't kill him first. He owns her, either way." Chase shivered as the word hit him. That was exactly what he felt like and he had not even realized it. Joe Smith had taken possession of his life. This stranger owned him and there was no room for Cameron or anyone else to break that hold.

"Keep in mind that in this day, women were little more than property. If you can quote Deuteronomy to me, I'm going to assume that you're not ignorant of the Book."

"I've read it all," Chase replied testily. "I've studied it all. Obviously not enough, because I can't get a grasp on this."

"The Old Testament is a history book and a look at the laws as they were. Do you remember the food laws?" The pastor asked.

Chase nodded, wondering where he was headed.

"Those changed. Laws about sacrificial cleansing for sins changed. It was a different society. Remember that in the context of this society, she had few rights to start with."

"So that makes it okay? The principles aren't supposed to change just because the society does." He tried to ease his tone, reminding himself that he should not be angry that the pastor had assumed he had never read the Bible. "I don't mean to sound rude," he added. "I just need answers that make sense and I haven't been able to find that on my own," he explained. "I've always asked too many questions," he added quietly.

"You're not asking too many questions, Robert, and it's not wrong for you to keep asking until you find what you need. Seek and ye shall find," he said, quoting another verse. "We'll find what you need somehow," he promised. "I believe what you have to focus on is not the actions of the society toward the gir-victim. What you should take from this passage is the very clear statement that the victim committed no sin, even under the extremely strict Jewish law of the Old Testament history. Therein lies the answer to your question about accountability. As for the abysmal treatment of women in ancient times, remember that Jesus actively helped change the view of women by letting them be His followers."

Chase was not quite ready to accept the answer. "What about Tamar?" he asked, referring to the daughter of King David who had been raped by her half brother Amnon. "She became a desolate woman," he quoted the common interpretation. "No one wanted her after she was raped. Or maybe someone did want her, but she was too afraid let anyone in. Her life may as well have been over and she was the daughter of the king!" He feared that desolation might be his own fate if his insanity drove away everyone who was putting up with him. He was certain he would remain alone if could not recover enough to handle intimacy.

"Is that how you feel, Robert? Like your life may as well be over?"

Chase searched for the right answer, but the best he could give was a shrug. He was well aware that whatever answer he had today could change tomorrow as hope and despair fought a war for dominance.

"At any time, have you considered hurting yourself?" Brother Earls asked.

"I'm not going to kill myself," he answered, frustrated that everyone eventually got around to this. Did no one realize that he would not be desperately seeking help if he were suicidal? He would do it and get it over with. It would be as easy as injecting himself with the right dose of the right drug.

"That's not what I asked you."

"I'm… confused," Chase admitted, surprising himself with his candor. "I don't think about ways to go about hurting myself, but I feel like I'm walking under a shadow, like I did something wrong and now I deserve to be punished. Somehow. Or maybe this was my punishment. Maybe I deserved to be punished before and this is how I'm being punished. In that case, then I'm supposed to be suffering. But, maybe, just maybe, if I can be forgiven then I won't have to hurt anymore because the punishment will stop."

Brother Earls inhaled deeply, setting his Bible on the desk. He took Chase's hand in his own. "Robert, you're not being punished. That is not how God works."

"But how do you know?" Chase asked, his desperation coming through. "How do you know? If trials test your faith to see if it's pure, I've already failed. I was going to become a priest, but my father…" He let himself remembered his father ridiculing him for his aspirations.

"If your God is so powerful and loving, why isn't he answering your prayers?" Rowan asked coolly. "You are praying for Victoria, aren't you?"

"Of course I am," Chase answered.

"Is she getting any better?"

"It takes time."

"What? No miracle?"

"It takes faith."

"You need to leave this insanity, Robert. Come with me. I'll get you into the best medical program in the country. You'll have a head start and be the top of your class. I haven't sent you to the best academy in Melbourne so you can go hide away in a church and do nothing."

"If I wanted to be a doctor, I could get myself into medical school. I'm not going to be beholden to you for the rest of my life," he replied in the same chilly tone his father used. "The ministry isn't doing nothing. It's helping the needy and the lost. It's a calling."

"Help the sick instead, Robert. What will God think if you don't use the ability that supposedly He gave you? You're too intelligent to throw your life away on fairytales. "

"I'm not throwing my life away. I'm taking care of my mother. Somebody has to!" he snapped, unable to hide his anger.

"You're enabling her. She needs to wake up alone and realize what she's done to herself and her life. You need to walk away, Robert. God can't save her. She has to do that for herself."

Reality hit him when he found his mother's body.

He focused on Brother Earls and continued his story. "When my mother died, I lost my faith. I did what my father wanted. I picked him over God and never pleased either of them. I walked away from God."

"And now you're walking back," Brother Earls reminded him. "You never really abandoned Him and He has never abandoned you."

"He wasn't there in that clinic," Chase argued, angry at the implication that God had been with him all this time. "He wasn't there when they were holding us at gunpoint or hitting me or when he was choking me or-" he stopped abruptly. "Wait a second." Chase felt as if he had just been woken from a very vivid dream. The image was overpowering, but quickly fleeting. He wanted to close his eyes and go back into the image. His jaw fell slack as the memory came back to him again. "He was there." He closed his eyes, remembering.

"Where?" Brother Earls asked.

"When he was strangling me," Chase answered, absently touching his right hand to his neck. He briefly made eye contact with the minister while he explained, "I was dying. I know I was dying, but there was light and warmth." He closed his eyes again, took a deep breath, then held it, struggling to remember what it had felt like, what it had looked like, the blinding white that was nothing and everything all at the same time. "I think my heart stopped because I remember it was pumping so hard and so painfully and my lungs felt like they would explode if I didn't get some oxygen, but then all the pain just stopped and there was… comfort." He searched within himself for more of the memory, but it was disrupted by connected memory of foul breath pouring into his lungs instead. "I want to go back," he said, trying to force his mind to return to the moment of light.

"Go back?"

"To the light," Chase answered. "Because it was… the light was love." He did not feel the tears that slid down his cheeks. Images flashed through his mind, the juxtaposition of the light and the horror preceding and following that brief reprieve. There had been a moment when he was not alone. "I want to be there. I want to be loved," Chase admitted in a whisper. "If I had let go then, if I had stayed there, then none of this would matter because it wouldn't have been me that was raped. It would have been a body and I would have gotten away before he made me this." He looked down at himself, disgusted with everything about him.

"That man didn't change you into something else," Brother Earls tried to assure him. "The only One who can change you is God Himself."

"You don't understand!" Chase argued. "He's still on me. He's all over me. He owns me just like that poor girl in the field," he hung his head. "Please help me. I'm trying so hard to be what I was before, but I'm not… I'm not ready. It still hurts, but I don't want them to know because they're going to get tired of me. They think I'm getting better and I am, sort of, but not fast enough." Images of faces flashed through his mind-House, Cameron, Wilson. They all had been supportive, but they were all bound to tire of him eventually if they had not already. He could not let them know how much pain was still eating away at him. "He did change me. I'm afraid of everything now. I'm afraid to be alone. I'm afraid to be too close to someone. I'm going through the motions and pretending to be better as much as I can, but it's all going to crash. That's why you have to forgive me," he plead.

"Robert, look at me," Brother Earls directed.

Chase looked up, viewing the pastor's kind face through watery vision.

"I honestly do not believe you need to be forgiven for having this horrible thing happen to you."

Chase blinked, watching the other man, searching his mind for a way to convince the preacher that he did have to be forgiven, just in case he was being punished.

"But what really matters here is that you believe you need to be forgiven. I think it's time you turn to God for the answers that man can't give you."

"How?"

"Just pray. Whether you speak aloud or pour your soul out in silence, just talk to God. He knows what you need."

"I…" Chase's voice shook. "I don't know what to say. That's why I need help."

"We'll pray together," Brother Earls encouraged. To Chase's surprise, the man got on his knees on the carpeted floor, facing the seat of the chair as he folded his hands together. He looked up to Chase, "Will you pray with me?"

"I-" Chase had no idea what to say. The concept of getting on bended knee for prayer was certainly familiar to him, but not a thing he had done since begging for his mother's life to be changed so many years ago. He was uncertain that he could even do it. But Brother Earls looked to him with such kindness in his eyes, that Chase let himself trust the other man. He cautiously got on the floor, facing his own chair. His mind whirled as he remembered the last time he had been on his knees. It was almost enough to make him jump to his feet, but he realized he was not afraid of the pastor so there was no reason to fear this position. Chase watched the other man nod to him, then bow his head.

"Our Father in heaven, I come to you today with a heavy heart," Brother Earls started. "My Christian brother has questions I can't answer and I recognize my own limitations as your servant. Lord, Robert is deeply wounded by this heinous act committed against him. He needs to feel your love and your grace. Please hear him and comfort him. Please give him the answers he needs." Brother Earls turned to Chase, "Just say what's in your heart."

"I," Chase started, looking at the other man.

"Not to me," the pastor said. "To Him," he looked upward.

Chase closed his eyes to block out the sight of the other man. "I'm sorry," he cried. "I don't know what to confess. This all started like this, on my knees. I had to do stuff I didn't want to do so they wouldn't kill me or Foreman or anyone else." He remembered the tape around his wrists. He had been bound by this ever since. "I don't know why they picked me. If I did something to cause this, I don't know what it was, but I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I didn't stop it somehow and I'm sorry that Foreman was there and that he has to live with it too and I'm sorry for needing so much help. Please forgive me for letting this happen." Chase rested his head on the seat of the chair, letting tears spill from his eyes. Brother Earls kept one hand on his back in a show of support.

In his mind, Chase saw himself in the diagnostics office, getting the message from Foreman to come to the clinic. He remembered walking through the clinic doors and noticing the few people still waiting to be seen. He remembered opening the door and meeting the patient who would become his assailant. He saw Dave and the gun. The gun and Foreman. The gun and Foreman and a small girl in the waiting room who had been clinging to her tired mother. The gun.

"Control," he said, looking up to see the pastor watching him closely.

"What about control?" Brother Earls asked softly.

"I didn't have any control," Chase said, an odd feeling of relief washing over him. "I really didn't have any control over the situation."

"I know," Brother Earls agreed. "You couldn't help it."

"No," Chase said. "You don't get it. I really didn't have any control!" He shifted from his knees, sitting on the floor with his legs crossed.

Brother Earls looked at him questioningly, joining him in the more comfortable position.

"It was easier to blame myself than to admit I didn't have any control. As long as you hang onto the idea of having some kind of control, you don't quite have to accept that someone else can hurt you, rape you, kill you, and you have no power to stop it. I think it's a way of protecting yourself in the aftermath to believe that you could have protected yourself even if you couldn't. Admitting you can't always protect yourself is admitting that it could happen again and that life is uncertain and unfair and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."

The pastor nodded, "I think I understand what you're saying."

"It wasn't me," Chase whispered. "I didn't do anything wrong."

"No, you didn't," the pastor smiled.

"I didn't do anything wrong," Chase repeated, relief flooding through him. "It's not your sin if you're not in control." He covered his face with both hands. The stream of tears flowing from his eyes felt as if they were cleansing his very soul, so he just let them go along with the idea that he could have stopped what had happened.

The pastor sat next to him, wrapped one arm around his shoulders and pulled Chase to him in an easy embrace. Brother Earls patiently let the young man release his emotions, providing a cloth handkerchief when Chase was ready to dry his eyes.

"Thank you," Chase said to the pastor. "Thank you for helping me talk to God again."

"I'm always here if you need me," he promised.

Chase nodded, "Thank you."

"How are you feeling?"

Chase bit his lower lip and took a deep breath, giving himself a moment to clear his head from the emotions and memories. The weight of the misplaced burden of guilt was gone. He could breathe again. "I think I'm going to be okay."

The End? Maybe?

(look for an epilogue)