House started to clamber back up the debris "YOU!" he bellowed at the nearest fireman. "I need to get in there now!"

"We're nearly there actually if you'll just give us a little while .."

"No, now. Time's up people!"

The Chief was on his way over again. "I warned you. I told you to keep out of the way but you just couldn't help yourself. Down, now" the Chief demanded.

"I've lost her on the radio."

"What about the other guy?"

"I don't care about the other guy!" House roared.

The Chief made a move towards House. He was nearly nose to nose with him when there was a shout behind them "Over here! I think I see them!". The Chief turned instantly and flew up the pile. House was a little way behind, struggling over the terrain.

"I need two EMT's up here stat!" the Chief called.

House turned and could see there was no end of volunteers. They weren't going to beat him down there though. He was going down there and that was final.

Nurse Sarah had other ideas though. House hadn't even realised she'd left the site let alone made her way back here.

He was just taking, or rather attempting, a large step over some twisted scaffold when her hand grabbed his arm. "No House" she said quietly. "She needs you but not down there. You go down there and you're gonna stop them from getting her out. They need to move quickly and last time I looked you're not exactly Usain Bolt are you?"

"Get your hands off me otherwise you're going to become rather familiar with my cane in a very personal way." House bent down to stare into her eyes.

Sarah didn't waver. "You know I'm right about this. She needs you up here to check her over when they get her out."

"It's going to be too late by then. Don't you see? This isn't going to be some fairy tale ending. She's not going to come out without a hair out of place and just in need of a band aid."

"I know that. But you need to be here to fix this."

They continued to stare at each other. Each as stubborn as the other. Even Sarah was surprised when House backed down. He shrugged his arm free from her grasp.

"Fine." One word, that was the extent of his reply. Still, he turned his back and made a slower assent up the artificial hill of junk. Just as he turned he saw two EMT's lowering themselves into the hole. There was nothing he could do but wait.

It was almost as if Cuddy had a 6th sense as just at that precise moment his cell rang. He looked at the display and saw her number. He answered it and started to speak without waiting for an introduction. It could have been the Queen of England for all he cared.

"They've found her in the wreck. They've gone in now to get her out. I lost her on the radio just after she started to say her goodbyes. Not sure what they are gonna find down there." With that he simply hung up and waited.

Meanwhile at PPTH ...

Cuddy stood in her office with Chase, Foreman and Wilson. All of them just stood and stared at the phone and listened to the disconnected tone which rang out from the speakerphone. Chase was the first one to move. He turned and walked slowly out of the office.

No one followed him. They must have figured he needed some time. He walked through the now deserted clinic, shut down because of the mass of casualties in the ER. He stood at the glass doors that led out into the foyer.

Unlike the clinic it was heaving with people. It was being used as a makeshift triage area. The walking wounded, of which there were plenty, were having their wounds dressed and assessed by Doctors, Interns, nurses, basically any medical staff the hospital had to offer.

It should have been loud, the noise should have assaulted his ears. But it didn't. He stood there, disconnected from the world. The only sounds that echoed in his ears were the sound of his own slightly ragged breathing and the sound of his heart pounding in his chest.

They'd found her at last. But her condition was unknown. How badly was she injured? House had said she'd started to say her goodbyes. She was a fully trained ER Doctor. She would have known herself just how bad things had gotten. She would have known if it was time to say those goodbyes...

No. He wouldn't give up hope. Isn't that what he told of his patients?

Another noise then began to ring in his ears. The disconnected tone of House's phone after he had hung up. The thought of House being exactly where he wanted, no, needed to be spurred him on. Anger pulsed through his veins now.

Chase could put up with House's abruptness with his patients. He'd even started to adopt his attitude to a certain extent over the last few months of his time on House's team. He'd started to see the patient as just a list of symptoms on a white board. Nameless. Sure, there had always been patients that had been different, that he'd connected with. But he'd seen Cameron at home crying privately over too many patients that she hadn't been able to help. This was happening more now that she was in the ER. Chase considered himself a happy medium between the two. Not as harsh as House but not as involved as Cameron.

But now, now it was someone he cared about, someone he loved, that was involved he instantly felt different. He regretted the harsh words he had spoken to patient and family alike, regretted those moments when his bedside manner had slipped. Suddenly the pain and suffering of those people was all too real.

The things he dealt with in the hospital, the injuries, the illnesses, they always happened to other people, right? No-one he cared about ended up as a patient surely?

In that moment the realisation dawned on him. Just because they were Doctors it didn't mean that they weren't just as susceptible to this stuff. They were just as fragile.

His feet moved automatically. He instinctively knew where he was going. He moved, silently it seemed to him, through the great mass of people.

Other medical personnel called out to him, asking for assistance. He was a senior member of the medical staff and his experience and skills were badly needed. His colleagues however were oblivious to the fact that one of the patients yet to arrive was his girlfriend. He moved on without realising they were calling to him.

He reached the stairs and climbed one floor up. The chapel lay just ahead of him.

Back at the site ...

House stood there watching and listening. Then he saw them – rising out the debris. First came one of the EMT's holding one end of a gurney. Then the rest of the gurney followed and there she was.

Even from his distant view point he could see she was deathly pale and obviously unconscious. Her arm fell from the side of the gurney and hung down like a lifeless doll. He could see she was smeared with blood, dirt and wet from whatever had soaked her.

House's heart skipped a few beats – well, more than a few actually. The logical part of his mind stopped to think why this should happen. This is a woman that you don't care about, why are you having such an emotional response? The non-logical, fly by the seat of your pants part of his brain was already hobbling across the twisted metal to get to Cameron as quickly as he could without falling and doing himself an injury.

They had been without radio contact for perhaps 10 minutes, 15 at the most. A lot could have happened in that time. House did not know if Cameron was alive or dead. 'They've got oxygen on her' he said to himself 'no point wasting that on a corpse'. But he had to see for himself.

He covered the distance faster than he gave himself credit for, dodging sharp metal points and splintered wood. He nearly lost his footing several times but kept going and managed to stay upright. His leg was screaming at him to stop but he ignored it.

As he closed in he could start to see the full extent of Cameron's physical appearance. She was, quite frankly, filthy – and not in a good way. Her long blonde hair was now matted and lank. Her face, usually as clean as porcelain, was now smudged and smeared. The blood instantly stood out. Her clothes were soaked through and clung to her lithe body like a second skin.

"Hey," House shouted once he was in earshot "what's her condition?" The EMT's ignored him. The second EMT was only just emerging from the hole in the rubble, moving quickly but deliberately to avoid aggravating any of Cameron's injuries. "I SAID" House exploded "what's her condition?"

The second EMT was facing him as he emerged into the daylight, blinking into the sunshine. "The casualty is unconscious and suffering from severe blood loss, severe leg trauma and unknown head injuries."

"What are her stats?"

"Haven't really had time to check properly – it's a real mess down there, not really the best environment to work in. It was kind of a scoop and run job."

"You idiots!" House bellowed "Are you even trained? You could have done God knows what damage. Set the gurney down." House wanted to check for himself.

"Sir, we really gotta get her in the ambulance and back to Princeton, we haven't got time .."

"Set the God damned gurney down now. If you know of me you know I'm good at this. Now let me look at her" House's already ice blue eyes turned a few shades cooler. His tone of voice left the EMT's in little doubt that they had to do what he said so they gently laid the gurney down.

House's trained eyes ran speedily over Cameron's body. He started at the top – the body wasn't much good without the brain. A cursory glance at Cameron's head was enough to tell House that the serious damage lay elsewhere. Cameron had complained of being nauseous and dizzy which could have indicated head trauma but he didn't exactly have a portable CT scanner with him at the moment. House concentrated on things he could do something about here and now – everything else would have to wait until they were back at the hospital.

Anyway, somehow he couldn't bring himself to look at Cameron's face. He was well known for the fact that he never got to know his patients. He had cured 100's but could probably count the number of names of those patients he remembered on one hand. If he didn't know them, didn't care about them, there was nothing stopping him trying his next insane treatment on them. He wouldn't be the one grieving if things didn't work out, he'd just move on to the next John Doe that got his symptoms written up on the white board in his office.

But this was different. This was Cameron. He knew this woman, had worked with her, hell, he had even been on a couple of dates with her – 'if that's what you could call them' he thought to himself.

His eyes briefly flicked over her face, most of which was covered by the oxygen mask, and quickly moved on. His eyes searched on – her upper body seemed pretty much unscathed. The arms of her boiler suit were ripped and torn and there were some pretty nasty looking scrapes and gashes but nothing too serious. Cameron was wet through but some of that had dried in places, probably due to the heat below.

Then he saw what he had been looking for. Cameron's left leg was, what he could only describe as, busted open. A slight breath caught in House's throat as he saw the metal sticking through Cameron's left calf. The EMT's had left it in place – it would only be removed back at the hospital and probably in an OR. They had padded it as best they could but blood was now seeping through the bandages they had placed around this foreign object – Cameron's blood. By the way Cameron's ankle hung at a grotesque angle, it was quite clearly broken.

"Hey" one of the EMT's said impatiently "we gotta go! What you waiting for?"

House hadn't realised it but he had stopped momentarily, mesmerized by the damage caused by this freak accident. 'Now you're the damaged one' he thought to himself. Brought back to his senses he dropped to one knee as best he could and examined the injury in more depth. It was a mess – plain and simple. There was nothing he could do here apart from check that there was a pulse in the foot – which there was – and speed Cameron away, back to the ER department that she ran.

"Go" was all House could manage. The EMT's lifted Cameron on the gurney and started to head down the metal mountain. House struggled to keep up – his bum leg holding him back. Slipping and sliding he tried to keep up with the EMT's but they were leaving him behind. He desperately wanted, needed, to go in the ambulance and make sure she arrived as safely as she could but whereas the EMT's were almost at the bottom of the pile (and being greeted by whoops and cheers from the rest of the rescue squad), House was still only about half way down.

"Hey!" he shouted, hoping the EMT's would hear him and slow up but he was drowned out by the celebration of the fact that someone had been pulled out alive. His cane missed the spot he was aimed for and he fell awkwardly, crying out in pain from his own leg which now burned brightly with pain. He struggled to his feet just in time to see Cameron being bundled into the back of the ambulance. The doors were slammed shut and then she was gone.

House stood there and watched as the ambulance sped away from the building site with its sirens blaring. He grabbed his cell phone from his pocket and dialled an all too familiar number.

"House?" came Cuddy's voice at the other end.

"She's on her way back now – be about 10 minutes. Get ready for her" House said coolly.

"What? How is she? Are you with .." Cuddy started to say before she was cut off by the abrupt end to the call.

House stowed his phone in his pocket and started to climb down the rest of the scaffolding that was now only home to Sam and, unbeknownst to House, there wasn't such a rush to get him out. He ignored the ring tone of his cell – why the hell did he have Hanson anyway? – he knew it would be Cuddy, or worse Chase, seeking further information.

Right now, he just didn't know what to tell them.

Cuddy's Office ...

Cuddy stared at her office phone in disbelief. House was still being a jerk? Even now when this involved one of their own? She instantly pressed re-dial but there was no answer.

At that moment Wilson walked back into the office. He had walked out after Chase but had seen him lost in his own thoughts and thought better of interrupting them. He saw the look on Cuddy's face. "Only House can bring that face out" he said to Cuddy as he walked through her glass office doors "what's the news?"

"Your best friend's a complete jerk is the news!" Foreman replied.

"OK. So what's the new news?" Wilson replied.

"House called, said Cameron was on the way back and we should get ready. Then he hung up!" Cuddy raised her hands to the sky by way of emphasis "I've tried calling back but he's ignoring his phone. He didn't even say whether she was alive or dead."

Just at that moment – at exactly the wrong moment – Chase walked in. He heard the end of Cuddy's last sentence and the word 'dead' seemed to hang in midair.

Chase stopped where he was, his jaw dropped slightly.