Chapter 1: Differential
The ceiling is wrong.
That's the first thought that cuts through the fog. Not my ceiling. Not the water-stained acoustic tiles of my studio apartment in Philadelphia. This is smooth drywall, painted a pale cream that catches morning light from a window I don't own.
I bolt upright. The sheets are expensive—high thread count, navy blue. The mattress is memory foam. I haven't owned memory foam since medical school, and that was a twin-sized disaster from IKEA.
My hands look wrong.
Longer fingers. No calluses from years of IV placements. The skin tone is different—not quite as pale, like whoever owns these hands actually sees sunlight. I spread them in front of my face, watching them shake.
What the hell?
I stumble out of bed. My legs work, but they feel foreign—longer stride, different muscle memory. The bedroom is small but well-kept. A dresser. A closed laptop on a desk. Medical journals stacked neatly. Everything organized in a way I aspire to but never achieve.
The bathroom mirror destroys what's left of my composure.
The face staring back isn't mine.
Younger—maybe late twenties, early thirties. Sharp jawline. Dark blonde hair that needs a trim. Blue eyes instead of brown. Handsome in that symmetrical way that makes people trust you instantly. Australian, if the bone structure is any indication.
I recognize this face.
"No," I say out loud. The voice is wrong too—deeper, with an accent that curls around the vowels. "No, no, no."
But denying it doesn't make the reflection change. I grip the sink, knuckles white, and stare at Robert Chase's face wearing my panic.
This is impossible. Has to be. People don't just wake up in different bodies. That's fiction. That's bad sci-fi. That's—
House M.D.
The thought hits like a train. I'm looking at a character from a TV show. A show I watched religiously during my residency because it was the only thing that made me laugh after sixteen-hour shifts. A show I rewatched when I got sick because—
Because I died.
The memory surfaces like a body from deep water. The hospital hallway. Night shift. I was walking to the cafeteria when the pain hit—sudden, catastrophic, like someone reached into my chest and squeezed. Myocardial infarction. I was thirty-two years old with no risk factors, and my heart just stopped.
I remember hitting the floor. The ceiling tiles. Someone screaming for a crash cart.
Then nothing.
Then this.
"Okay." I splash water on my face—on Chase's face—and force myself to breathe. "Okay. Process this. You're a doctor. Be clinical."
Hypothesis: I died and somehow transmigrated into Robert Chase from House M.D.
Evidence: The face. The apartment. The—
I lurch back to the bedroom and start pulling open drawers. Clothes. Australian passport in the nightstand with Chase's name and photo. Medical credentials from the University of Queensland. A PPTH employee badge clipped to a lanyard.
Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.
The show's hospital. Where Gregory House runs diagnostics and breaks rules and saves lives through sheer bastard genius.
I sit on the bed, holding the badge. The plastic is real. The photo is this face. Robert Chase, M.D. Fellow in Diagnostic Medicine.
This can't be real.
But the badge is solid in my hand. The apartment smells like coffee and laundry detergent. My—his—stomach is empty and growling.
And then the memories hit.
Not mine. Chase's. They flood in like a dam breaking—fragmentary, emotional, vivid but incomplete. I see a man who must be Rowan Chase, famous surgeon, drunk on a couch while young Robert watches from the doorway. I feel the cold of a seminary in the morning, the weight of cassocks, the hollow certainty that God isn't answering. I remember medical school in Australia, the decision to leave, the flight to America.
But it's like watching scenes from a movie I've seen before. I can recall the emotions—the shame, the loneliness, the desperate need to prove himself—but they're at a distance. They're his, not mine.
My memories stay sharp. Eight years as a hospitalist in Philadelphia. The long shifts. The patients I saved. The ones I lost. My apartment with its broken air conditioner. The Thai place on the corner. My ex-girlfriend who left because I worked too much.
The heart attack.
I died, and I woke up here. In Robert Chase. Two weeks before the pilot episode, if the timeline is right.
"You're losing it," I tell the empty room. "You're in a coma. This is a dying dream. People don't transmigrate into TV characters."
But I know better. I've felt dying dreams—the morphine haze after my appendectomy, the anesthesia fog during knee surgery. This is crisp. Real. My hands are steady now, and the hunger in my stomach is genuine.
I'm here. Somehow, impossibly, I'm here.
And if I'm here, I need to figure out what that means.
I spend the next hour searching the apartment like a detective. It's small—one bedroom, efficient kitchen, living room with a TV and a couch that's seen better days. Medical textbooks on the shelves. A few framed photos: Chase with other doctors, Chase at some beach, Chase with an older woman who might be his mother.
No evidence of the show being a show. No scripts. No cameras. This is real life, or real enough.
I find a laptop and open it. The desktop shows Chase's schedule—shifts at PPTH, patient notes, a calendar with meetings marked. Two weeks from now: "First day - House's team."
My hands hover over the keyboard. If this is real, I have metaknowledge. I know the cases. I know House will hire Chase, Foreman, and Cameron. I know about Vogler, about Stacy, about everything.
But how much do I actually remember? I watched the show years ago. I remember the broad strokes—the pilot episode had a tapeworm, there was a nun in one episode, Chase became a spy. But dialogue? Specific patient names? The details are fuzzy.
Dangerous to rely on incomplete knowledge. I need to be careful.
I'm about to close the laptop when I notice an envelope on the desk. Mail. I open it without thinking, and the paper edge slices my thumb.
"Dammit." I drop the envelope and stick my thumb in my mouth. The cut stings—sharp and immediate.
But when I pull my hand away to look at it, the bleeding has already stopped.
I stare. Press the cut. It should hurt more. Should be deeper. I literally just sliced it open on paper.
The skin is knitting together. Not instantly—I can see it happening, but it's fast. Too fast. In the time it takes me to grab a tissue, the cut has sealed completely. No blood. No scab. Just a thin red line that's already fading.
"What the hell?"
I grab the envelope again and deliberately draw the edge across my forearm. A shallow cut, just enough to break skin. Blood wells up, and I watch.
The bleeding stops within seconds. The skin begins to close. Within two minutes, there's nothing but a faint mark that's disappearing as I stare.
Enhanced healing. Superhuman immune response. Something is different about this body beyond just being Chase.
The transmigration gave me powers.
No. That's insane. But the evidence is right there on my arm, vanishing like it was never real.
I sit on the couch, head in my hands—Chase's hands—and try to process this.
I died. I transmigrated into a TV character. And apparently, I have some kind of enhanced healing.
Why? How does any of this make sense?
It doesn't. But it's happening anyway.
The apartment feels too small suddenly. I need air. I need to think. I need to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do now.
Two weeks until the pilot. Two weeks until House starts building his team. Two weeks to figure out who I'm going to be.
Not the original Chase. I can't be him—I don't have his memories intact enough for that. But I'm not entirely myself anymore either. I'm something in between. Something new.
The paper cut is completely gone now. I run my thumb over smooth skin and feel my heart rate steady.
Whatever I am, whatever this is, I have to deal with it.
I can mourn my old life, or I can build something with this one.
I choose build.
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