"The Tyrant" post-ep ficlet.
Oct. 6th, 2009 02:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lit_luminaryTitle: Mea Maxima Culpa
Author: dominus_trinus (lit_luminary)
Rating: PG-13 for concepts.
Characters: Chase
Summary: The aftermath of decision: to some questions, there are no objective answers.
He lies awake in bed, following his thoughts in circles that refuse to be slowed by the lull of Allison’s breathing.
Do you really think you can kill another human being with no consequence to yourself? Foreman’s voice, accusing.
No legal consequences, maybe: he knows the argument he made is a good one; there’s a small chance he won’t end up on death row or spending the remainder of his life in federal prison. But he’s remembering his own words, too: that only a psychopath can do the sort of thing he just did without guilt.
He laughs humorlessly into the dark: at least he’s not a psychopath.
Dibala’s life wasn’t worth the massacre of two million people, and his own life—if that’s the price he ends up paying for this—isn’t, either. He’d rather live with one life directly on his conscience than read the newspapers and find out he contributed indirectly to a genocide.
Ironically, curing a killer isn’t a crime. But since when does ‘First, do no harm’ mean enabling a bloodbath?
Who would blame Hitler’s doctor for an intentional mistake?
He answers his own question: that doctor might have gotten praise from the history books, but he’d still have been judged a criminal in his own time.
But is killing sometimes right, even if it isn’t legal?
It’s one thing to help a suffering terminal patient who asks to die: he’s seen that done before, even knows he could do it himself. That would be mercy, standing aside and allowing nature to take its course. Minimizing pain.
It’s another thing altogether to kill a patient who could otherwise have lived.
Lived to authorize the slaughter of two million people. If he’d watched Dibala walk out with his small army of aides and advisors and known what he was going to do—could he have lived with that?
Irrelevant question. This time his inner voice sounds like House, the clinical tones he uses during a differential. He’s dead; you killed him. Try asking how you’re going to live with that.
He should have refused when Foreman first asked for his help. Cuddy wouldn’t have put him on the case if he’d just said something like, ‘I can’t be objective about this patient.’ That simple.
And if House had gotten his way about treating for scleroderma—which he probably would have—Dibala would still be dead, and it would have been an honest misdiagnosis.
Chase would have absolutely no responsibility.
If he told House about what he’s done, what he’s thinking, House would probably say something snarky about perfect hindsight, and tell him to either turn himself in for punishment or stop feeling guilty. There’d be some kind of advice, anyway.
Except he can’t tell House, or Allison for that matter, because it’s bad enough Foreman could end up in trouble: if he goes down for this, the least he can do is go down without dragging anyone after him.
Allison wouldn’t have done this. She did the safe, legal thing, the right thing by the usual definition, and she probably even was right. What had he been thinking?
He’d been thinking that he couldn’t let two million people (as if the number of lives saved automatically means he was justified) die horribly when it was in his power to stop.
When had he become capable of making that kind of decision? Playing God?
Nausea roils in the pit of his stomach.
Sabotaging the test results had been premeditated. He’d known that the treatment based on those test results would kill. He’d gone through the motions of trying to save a patient he’d set up to die. He’d watched him choke on his own blood.
Silently, he mouths the shapes of Latin words: Confiteor Deo omnipotenti. His breath catches at mea maxima culpa, before the words that ask forgiveness, because what the hell does he think he’s doing, talking to a God that would let that kind of monster exist in the first place?
Is there a God at all?
Another irrelevant question: some things there is no forgiveness for.
END.
Notes: The Latin above is an excerpt from the Confiteor, a traditional Roman Catholic prayer. Translated, “I confess to God Omnipotent [or Almighty].” Mea maxima culpa means “My most grievous fault.” The complete text of the prayer, with translation, can be read here.
Author: dominus_trinus (lit_luminary)
Rating: PG-13 for concepts.
Characters: Chase
Summary: The aftermath of decision: to some questions, there are no objective answers.
He lies awake in bed, following his thoughts in circles that refuse to be slowed by the lull of Allison’s breathing.
Do you really think you can kill another human being with no consequence to yourself? Foreman’s voice, accusing.
No legal consequences, maybe: he knows the argument he made is a good one; there’s a small chance he won’t end up on death row or spending the remainder of his life in federal prison. But he’s remembering his own words, too: that only a psychopath can do the sort of thing he just did without guilt.
He laughs humorlessly into the dark: at least he’s not a psychopath.
Dibala’s life wasn’t worth the massacre of two million people, and his own life—if that’s the price he ends up paying for this—isn’t, either. He’d rather live with one life directly on his conscience than read the newspapers and find out he contributed indirectly to a genocide.
Ironically, curing a killer isn’t a crime. But since when does ‘First, do no harm’ mean enabling a bloodbath?
Who would blame Hitler’s doctor for an intentional mistake?
He answers his own question: that doctor might have gotten praise from the history books, but he’d still have been judged a criminal in his own time.
But is killing sometimes right, even if it isn’t legal?
It’s one thing to help a suffering terminal patient who asks to die: he’s seen that done before, even knows he could do it himself. That would be mercy, standing aside and allowing nature to take its course. Minimizing pain.
It’s another thing altogether to kill a patient who could otherwise have lived.
Lived to authorize the slaughter of two million people. If he’d watched Dibala walk out with his small army of aides and advisors and known what he was going to do—could he have lived with that?
Irrelevant question. This time his inner voice sounds like House, the clinical tones he uses during a differential. He’s dead; you killed him. Try asking how you’re going to live with that.
He should have refused when Foreman first asked for his help. Cuddy wouldn’t have put him on the case if he’d just said something like, ‘I can’t be objective about this patient.’ That simple.
And if House had gotten his way about treating for scleroderma—which he probably would have—Dibala would still be dead, and it would have been an honest misdiagnosis.
Chase would have absolutely no responsibility.
If he told House about what he’s done, what he’s thinking, House would probably say something snarky about perfect hindsight, and tell him to either turn himself in for punishment or stop feeling guilty. There’d be some kind of advice, anyway.
Except he can’t tell House, or Allison for that matter, because it’s bad enough Foreman could end up in trouble: if he goes down for this, the least he can do is go down without dragging anyone after him.
Allison wouldn’t have done this. She did the safe, legal thing, the right thing by the usual definition, and she probably even was right. What had he been thinking?
He’d been thinking that he couldn’t let two million people (as if the number of lives saved automatically means he was justified) die horribly when it was in his power to stop.
When had he become capable of making that kind of decision? Playing God?
Nausea roils in the pit of his stomach.
Sabotaging the test results had been premeditated. He’d known that the treatment based on those test results would kill. He’d gone through the motions of trying to save a patient he’d set up to die. He’d watched him choke on his own blood.
Silently, he mouths the shapes of Latin words: Confiteor Deo omnipotenti. His breath catches at mea maxima culpa, before the words that ask forgiveness, because what the hell does he think he’s doing, talking to a God that would let that kind of monster exist in the first place?
Is there a God at all?
Another irrelevant question: some things there is no forgiveness for.
END.
Notes: The Latin above is an excerpt from the Confiteor, a traditional Roman Catholic prayer. Translated, “I confess to God Omnipotent [or Almighty].” Mea maxima culpa means “My most grievous fault.” The complete text of the prayer, with translation, can be read here.
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-06 08:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-06 08:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-06 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-06 10:50 pm (UTC)That he did what he did gives me the chills (an understatement of course). Chase has always been one of my favorite characters and I would hate to see him go down because of this act. At the same time, he killed a man...but he kept so many people from dying becuase he did. It's one of those questions, I think, that is so hard to answer because sometimes the pros outweigh the cons, when other times the cons outweigh the pros. I think that Chase is most likely going to wind up very internally damaged by this, if he isn't there already...most likely, as you've portrayed in this, he's numb.
I hate to think of what this will do to Cameron. Well, I guess we have the rest of the season to find out...
PS: May I friend you?
no subject
Date: 2009-10-06 11:01 pm (UTC)The fascinating thing is that there is no right answer: say it's universally wrong to kill, there go two million people. But on the other hand, there's the right of the individual to live. Is every life equally sacred from a moral perspective? Can something that's usually considered a sin be the moral thing if it prevents such widespread suffering? And that's not even considering the legal ramifications...
Of course you're welcome to friend me. (As I say in my profile, 'Friend at will.' It's how I know people actually visit my LJ and take and interest.) Glad to have you aboard, so to speak.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 02:45 am (UTC)I suppose that doesn't become an issue here because Chase is more focused on moral than legal consequences: if there are legal consequences, he knows what's likely to happen to him and to the Sitibi; he doesn't have to guess. But at that moment, he's assuming that there might not be--and the implication, which you rightly identified, is that he may have to live without external punishment (which could feel just as wrong as having killed Dibala in the first place).
no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 11:55 pm (UTC)That's a very good point in hindsight.
This is a pointed, yet sympathetic, look into Chase's thoughts. I can see him thinking like this, too.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-08 12:03 am (UTC)This was an interesting piece to write, particularly as it gave me the opportunity to consider some of those questions myself: at what point, if ever, does it become morally right to end a life?
no subject
Date: 2009-10-10 02:04 am (UTC)I love the empathy you show this character and how clearly you understand him.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-10 02:18 am (UTC)(Perhaps ironically, I was just reading the abstract of an article that referenced the cognitive imperative in emergency medicine...)
I consider it a duty to understand the characters I write for: I couldn't represent their thoughts accurately otherwise. But nonetheless--glowing over the compliment.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-06 05:40 am (UTC)