House, MD is the property of David Shore, Bad Hat Harry Productions, Heel and Toe Productions, and NBC Universal. I claim no ownership to any parts or characters.

Even though the threat of imminent death scared him, it took an immediate backseat to the feeling of hatred that swelled inside as House stared at the man in front of him.

The police had continued speaking in his ear while he was being driven blindly to the meeting spot. He knew that, at that very moment, there were police officers silently surrounding all sides of him and would be ambushing them at some point. The hostage negotiator had warned him expressly not to do anything to set this guy off before then.

He didn't realize how hard it would be to comply until that moment. His hands were twitching, itching, to beat the living shit out of the man standing before him.

House swallowed evenly and glared. "I've got your money," he said in a hard voice. "Now release Wilson."

Morgan just lifted a smug eyebrow.

"Let me see it," he said lazily.

House clenched his teeth. When he didn't immediately comply, one of the men standing at his side shoved his shoulder hard to compel him. He bit his tongue to keep from snapping at the man and instead opened up the envelope he held in one hand.

"You want to count it?" he spat out, unable to help it as he pulled the bills halfway out so that they were visible.

Morgan smiled like he was in on some kind of private joke. "I don't know," he said with amusement. "Do I need to?"

"Let. Wilson. GO," House demanded again. He flung the full envelope at the man's feet in disgust and his expression hardened dangerously. "Morgan….let him go right now or I swear to God I'll kill you."

Morgan bent and picked up the envelope. He took his time sorting through the numerous bills as he watched House seethe in front of him, clenching fists, and couldn't help but laugh.

As if he should be afraid of a cripple.

He shared a look with his two cohorts, grinned, and then said five simple words that proceeded to blow the entire operation into spectacular pieces.

"I don't think I will."

Sitting in the backseat of an empty police cruiser, having been banished under threat of arrest by the officers they accompanied if they so much as thought of opening the door, Foreman and Chase were nevertheless able to hear every word spoken outside due to the fact that House's hidden earpiece frequency had somehow been wired into the entire police radio system.

However, just because they had been witnesses to a side of House over the last several hours that neither of them had ever seen didn't mean that they thought the man had changed. Foreman, for one, at least pretty much knew with absolute certainty after working with House for so long that nothing would ever truly change the personality of Gregory House.

So the moment that they heard the man refuse to release Wilson after House pretty much ordered him to, both of them felt their stomachs drop at the same time.

"Shit," he heard Chase swear softly beside him.

Foreman turned his head to see Chase mirroring his expression of dread. He knew that their thoughts had to have been on the same path. They knew the man.

He hoped to God that the police knew what they were dealing with. House was about to become an atomic bomb.

Fortunately, Captain Spalding hadn't been promoted up the ranks three times in the last four years for being an idiot. He'd seen all he needed to see of Doctor House's volatile temper during the entire situation.

He'd hoped to wait at least until they had some idea of where Doctor Wilson was being kept before stepping in. But when he heard the mocking words of the kidnapper telling Doctor House he wasn't going to release his victim, he threw that plan out of his mind.

His men were startled when he abruptly turned to face them and cocked his gun from their position in the shadows flanking the storage garages to the left of the kidnapper but obeyed without a hitch when he made the order.

"Move, now! NOW!"

His entire cloud of vision turned red. House didn't even know what he was doing until he felt himself moving forward with his hands aimed at the throat of Drake Morgan. The fact that the man was still holding a gun seemed to slip his mind or perhaps hadn't even come into it.

How he managed not to get himself shot, he would never know. He heard the gun firing, so close to him, but it was like he was possessed. His hands found their mark and he reveled in the feeling of cold skin squeezed under his palms.

His hand was rough, desensitized from years of gripping the hard top of a cane, and his arm deceptively strong from being used to bearing his weight on a daily basis.

It was laughably simple. He had the person responsible for terrorizing Wilson literally in the palm of his hand. House snarled in each breath as he squeezed harder and harder.

Stop his breath. He'll never be able to say another word to frighten anyone ever again. Break his neck. He'll never be able to look anyone in the eyes to scare them ever again. Bash his skull in. He'll never be able to-

"Doctor! House! House!"

Someone was screaming into his ear next to him but he didn't spare his attention. Even so close to death, the man under his hands was smirking, smirking, damn him! It boiled his blood. The rage inside of him burned even more and he suddenly decided that he was going to reach for the man's gun. It was hanging uselessly by the man's side now.

He didn't even have time to move toward it. Another body abruptly slammed into his arms from the side, forcing itself between them and pushing him away so that he had to drop his grip on Morgan.

Enraged, House moved to raise his cane, intending to bash the person's skull in because, damn it, he wanted blood now that he had been denied his vengeance. Then he sheepishly remembered that not only did he not have the cane with him but that the person now manhandling Morgan was a police officer. He'd forgotten all about their plan in the midst of the opportunity to confront Morgan at last.

He stood still then and looked around him practically in a daze, taking in the chaos around him. Uniformed officers had swarmed their immediate area like a beehive and he could hear shouts and commands and the sounds of bodies hitting the ground.

The two men who had been accompanying House were now face-down on the asphalt with a few officers standing around them with guns aimed while others handcuffed them. Some officers were running away from them towards the other end of the storage yard.

"-to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to…"

The voice approaching him made House start and he shifted his gaze to see Drake Morgan, handcuffed and being held at the arms by two officers, one of them reciting the Miranda rights as they walked.

He turned fully to stare at them when they passed. His eyes found Morgan's and even while apprehended the fucker leveled an amused look back at him. As if he'd won. As if he knew a secret they didn't.

Wilson.

Amazed that it had even left his mind for that short time, House started abruptly and his focus cleared instantly. He could hear faint shouts and the sound of storage garages being lifted around them.

He knew what they were looking for.

An almost animalistic panic seized him then and he began striding through the remaining officers as fast as he could toward the sea of storage garages closest to them. He didn't make it three steps before an officer was in front of him, forcing him to stop by seizing hold of his arms, and he surprised himself when he felt his arms pushing against the resistance strongly enough to make the officer apply more pressure.

"Doctor-"

The officer looked like a sniveling pipsqueak the same age as Cameron to him and was foolish enough to try and block his way and oh hell, no-

"Doctor!" The officer sounded surprised when House began pushing his way past him like he wasn't even there. He managed to catch House's arm again before he could keep going and quickly began explaining. "Doctor, we're searching this entire place. I can't let you-"

House swiveled to face the officer again with a speed that surprised him and he saw the young man's face become surprised. If his expression anywhere near matched the amount of desperate fury inside of him, he could only imagine what he must have looked like.

"Get out of my way," he told the officer warningly. He paused a minute to let the threat in his voice register with the young man. "You are not going to stop me from trying to find my friend…if I have to break every one of your arms to do it, I swear to God I will. Get out of my way."

The officer stared at him for a long moment and in that time House was able to see the emotions flickering in his eyes toward him easily. He was expecting them. He cataloged each one as it came. Confusion, apprehension, hesitation, admiration-

But no pity. He was actually rather surprised at that. Maybe this guy wasn't as useless as he'd thought.

The officer shook his head with a sigh. "Damn it," he said ruefully. "Well, for God's sake…at least try not to break the arm of my Captain, at least. I don't want to have to explain that to him along with this."

House bit back a grin and just glared at him. The young man let go of House's arm and began hurrying in the same direction with him. House could see that he was itching to break into a run and was keeping pace with him out of courtesy. He shook his head.

"Go on," he said gruffly. "Get going. We don't have time to waste."

The police officer looked at him gratefully and tipped his head in thanks before darting forward quickly.

The moment that they heard the police taking action, Chase and Foreman shot out of the car.

Police officers were leading three handcuffed men towards a few police cruisers parked near the one they had been in. Before either of them could move forward, though, an older officer planted himself in their path.

"I think I told you gentlemen to remain in the car," he said sternly. "We've got a lot of chaos going on right now. The last thing I'm going to do is let you get in the way to get hurt or worse."

"Look," Foreman said resolutely, making Chase glance at him in surprise. "All we want to do is help our friend. The more people we have looking for him now, the better."

The stubborn tone of voice that the doctor used reminded Captain Spalding of the insolent Doctor House that they had been dealing with. He scowled slightly, but then relented and couldn't believe what he was allowing himself to do.

He made sure that he had both of the young doctors' eyes before speaking so that they would see that he was serious. "You will stay with the officers. Do not, for one second, think about going anywhere on your own and you will do exactly as they say. Have I made myself clear, Doctors?"

They both answered immediately in the affirmative. Captain Spalding rounded up a few officers who were getting ready to join the others in the search and gave them strict instructions to keep Chase and Foreman in their sight.

As the group hurried away, Spalding stood between the cars that the three men had been placed in. He had no intention of leaving until they found out where their hostage was.

Irrational, out of his mind with desperation, and frustrated when he realized that he wasn't going to be able to jump in to participate, House took to rebelliously moving on to the next storage garage each time the officers were occupied with opening one and yanking savagely on the lock as if the action would weaken it.

They weren't moving fast enough. Though he could see that a good portion of the storage garages had been opened already, there were even more that hadn't been and that meant that Wilson could still be trapped inside one of them. Which meant that after half a day of being at the mercy of savage kidnappers, now it was the very people responsible for his rescue prolonging his torture.

Just the thought of his friend still trapped somewhere around them, hearing people everywhere but not being found, sent an icy cold nausea through his stomach. God, he needed to find something to get the lock off, anything. He couldn't do a single thing to help cover more ground. He'd promised Wilson, promised him that he was coming to get him out.

But stopping to find a tool of some kind to aid him meant that he would have to stop searching, if only for a few moments. And he had already put his best friend through the most horrifying ordeal of their lives. He would sooner go straight to Hell than spend any length of time keeping Wilson in it.

So he continued doggedly yanking and pulling on the steel padlocks of each storage garage he came to. He didn't think about the fact that he was accomplishing nothing, didn't think about the possibility of Wilson not even being there at all, didn't think about the time that kept passing with no success of finding his best friend.

He wouldn't think about it.

Finally, someone had the presence of mind to retrieve his cane from the car he had been in with the assailants. He didn't even turn to acknowledge the person, just snatched the cane the moment that it came into his line of sight and began slamming the head against the padlock with renewed vigor.

Foreman started at the sudden clanging sound nearby. He couldn't help whirling around to see what it was, but his sensory memory immediately pinpointed the source even before he actually laid eyes on it.

He'd heard it before.

Two years ago, the night of the hospital's annual Oncology Benefit that had ended up becoming a glorified nonstop diagnostic witch hunt for an unknown disease that had killed one of House's former patients and was in the process of doing the same to a little boy. House had been at his most obstinate (at the time) and Foreman remembered the way the man had forced his way into the hospital café' by breaking the padlock with his cane.

House was doing the same thing now.

Foreman watched his boss beating his cane against the small padlock securing the door of one of the garages, wearing the same expression of crazed desperation that he'd worn for the duration of that case.

Chase stood back as one of the police officers snapped the padlock with bolt cutters and tried not to bounce around anxiously on the balls of his feet. They were on the third storage garage. Unable to help it, he felt negativity clouding his thoughts and found himself automatically assuming that there wasn't going to be any chance of finding Wilson in that one either.

His stomach dropped to his feet in shock when the officers began shining flashlights inside the space and came across the outline of a figure huddled on the floor.

Holy shit.

His eyes widened in horror as officers immediately rushed inside, snapping orders and saying things that sounded like nonsense to him.

It was Wilson. From what little visibility he had around the swarm of police hurrying inside the garage, Chase saw that he was tied hand and foot, gagged, and blindfolded. The chaotic rush of voices blurred in his ears like a wave but Chase found himself glued to his spot.

Until he heard another kind of commotion that dropped his stomach to his feet.

"Relax, relax! We're the police, no one's going to hurt you!"

Peering around the officer blocking his way, Chase saw that Wilson was flailing and jerking as the officers tried to free him, making it impossible for them to keep hold of him to remove any of the bindings. Their attempts to reassure him were having the opposite effect, because the more they spoke the louder the sounds of panic became.

Without thinking twice, the younger doctorshoved his way through the officers into the garage. Someone immediately tried to stop him. He turned to face the officer with a murderous expression.

"Move," he snapped, not letting himself stop. "I'm a doctor."

The officer wisely complied. Chase hurried through the darkness, amazed that he could even see straight through the haze of adrenaline pulsating behind his eyelids. He skidded to his knees beside Wilson. The man was making keening sounds like a trapped animal, shaking his head from side to side anxiously.

He reached his arms out and gently took hold of the other man's shoulders, eliciting a frightened wail that made him wince.

"Wilson," he said quickly. "Wilson, it's Chase. It's Chase." He kept his grip soft on Wilson's shoulders. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you." He swallowed and hesitantly ventured on. "I'm going to take the blindfold off. It's okay."

Wilson was tense as a coiled spring under his hands, but went quiet as he began speaking. As quickly as he could, Chase pulled the fabric up over Wilson's head off of his face. Red-rimmed brown eyes blinked owlishly at him in the dark, looking terrified. When he recognized Chase, muffled pleas spilled out around the gag.

Unsure of what to do, the younger man awkwardly ran a hand over Wilson's forehead in attempt at comfort. "It's okay," he repeated. He delicately worked the tape off of Wilson's mouth and threw it to the side. "We're going to get you out of here now."

Wilson took a gasping breath once the tape was removed like a man drowning.

"House," he said hoarsely. He sounded delirious. Chase heard tears in his voice as he whimpered the name again. "House."

"It's alright," Chase said thickly, swallowing hard. Hearing the man's voice sound like that was like a punch to the gut. "House is here. You'll see him as soon as we get you out of here. I promise."

He was relieved to see that Wilson appeared a little bit calmer. Well, maybe calmer wasn't the right word, because he still looked scared to death, but at least he was no longer struggling. Encouraged, Chase slowly moved his hands toward where Wilson's hands were bound.

Sensing movement above him, Chase look over his shoulder and saw some officers motioning towards them with a small knife. He nodded.

Wilson tensed again when he saw officers coming towards him and whimpered the closer they came. Chase bit his lip. He moved his hands to Wilson's shoulders again. He hesitated a minute, then crouched closer to Wilson until he was loosely embracing him.

"They're not going to hurt you," he said, trying to be soothing. "It's alright. You're going to be out of here in just a minute. Just try to relax." He realized the insanity of his words as he finished.

Despite his attempts at reassurance, having more strangers so close to him in order to release his hands seemed to make his anxiety worse. Wilson didn't even try to hold back the frightened tears that spilled out.

Chase wasn't prepared for Wilson to suddenly throw his weight against him once his hands were free. He nearly toppled over in his surprise when Wilson surged forward towards the only familiar thing finally near him since the whole nightmare began. He threw his arms around Chase and crushed his face into the other man's coat desperately.

Make them go away, he silently pleaded behind closed eyes, God please make them go away!

Chase reacted instinctively, not caring about what the police officers thought. He returned the embrace as warmly as he could, suddenly reminded of just how cold it was out there and that Wilson wasn't wearing anything other than his shirtsleeves. He lowered his head until it was touching Wilson's and tried to speak so that the man could hear him.

"It's alright," he repeated. He rubbed brisk circles around Wilson's back trying to warm him. "We're going to get you home now. It's alright."

He struggled to shrug out of his coat without letting go of the other man completely. A nearby police officer realized what he was doing and quickly helped him shed the garment, taking it from him to drape around Wilson so he wouldn't have to move. His eyes floated up to the officer in silent thanks.

"There's an ambulance waiting," the officer said. "We're bringing in a stretcher."

Chase glanced down at the silent figure in his arms. He could feel Wilson breathing into his chest, but otherwise the man hadn't moved or made another sound. Removing his grip wouldn't be easy. He made a quick decision and shook his head at the officer.

"Just have it ready," he said firmly. "I'll bring him out."

He saw the officer look at him hesitantly. But the steely stare he gave deterred the man from objecting. The officer just nodded and backed away. After a moment, the others began to follow suit.

Chase breathed a sigh of relief when the crowd of officers began easing out from around them. He swallowed, ran his hand up Wilson's back again, and spoke.

"Alright, buddy," he said softly. "Let's get you out of here." He carefully adjusted his grip and prepared to get his feet out from under him. Wilson made a sound of distress and fumbled to clutch tighter to him. His fingers were trembling. "I've got you. It's okay, I've got you."

Slowly and carefully, Chase struggled to his feet and lifted Wilson up into his arms. His biceps began to shake with the strain and he widened his stance determinedly. Wilson clung to his neck weakly and dropped his head against Chase's collar, hiding his face.

Chase shifted his weight a little to make the hold a bit easier and began making his way out into the open air. He headed over to where the stretcher was waiting.

An unexpected commotion caught House's attention. He turned his head sharply away from where he had been ruthlessly bludgeoning yet another padlock, cane raised mid-strike.

A stretcher was being rushed across the asphalt lot by a several police officers and two uniformed EMTs.

His focus was diverted as quickly as it had been captured. He hurried across the lot in the path of the stretcher. A group of police officers was gathered in and around another small garage. They began parting as House came closer and he was able to see someone walking out. His heart suddenly skipped a beat when he recognized that it was Chase.

Carrying someone else in his arms.

House pushed his way through the group, hitting some legs with his cane to compel them to move and bulldozing over others.

The younger doctor bent down slightly and lowered Wilson onto the stretcher. But instead of letting go of him Wilson just held tighter around his neck, forcing Chase to remain hunched over with his arms braced against the mattress.

Trying to ignore the sudden tightness in his chest, House stepped up beside Chase.

"Hey-" His throat was as dry as sandpaper. He swallowed hard and tried again. "Wilson."

The expression of fear and desperation that came over his friend's face sent House's heart racing with panic. Wilson was looking at him like he had no idea who he was. He swallowed hard.

"It's me," he said thickly. "Wilson, it's me."

He brought his hand up gently onto his best friend's shoulder. It occurred to him as Wilson's head shot up to look in his direction that the touch felt completely foreign. Had he ever touched anyone that tentatively before?

Wilson continued to look at him like he was a total stranger for a few more terrifying seconds and he thought he couldn't breathe. Then Wilson blinked slowly.

"House," he whispered.

A horrifying burning sensation made House's eyes start to water. He had to swallow hard to push it away. But the burning in his chest wouldn't stop.

Foreman strode with the officers he had been with towards where a small group had gathered. He saw Chase immediately, standing beside a stretcher with his arms around a man sitting atop it.

He knew that the man was Wilson even before he saw House making his way over towards them. He reached them in time to see House place his hand on Wilson's shoulder. He stepped through the officers up beside Chase. The Australian glanced over at him with an unreadable expression.

When they both looked back towards the stretcher, Foreman was rendered speechless. By the look of shock that crossed Chase's features, he felt the same way.

As they watched, House threw his arms around Wilson and pulled him against his chest.

"Jesus," House said gruffly. He was blinking furiously, seeming to crush Wilson with his grip. "Jesus, Wilson."

In a move swifter than they would have given him credit for, House hopped up to sit beside Wilson on the stretcher. Wilson turned immediately to reach for him. His face disappeared against House's side until all that was visible was the top of his head. His shoulders were shaking.

House hugged the other man so closely that it looked like they were molded together and began rubbing his arms briskly across Wilson's back.

"You're freezing," he was saying. "God, Wilson, you're freezing."

From their positions, Chase and Foreman could see then that House's shoulders had started to shake too. They glanced at each other.

Without voicing it, they both decided that was just from the force of Wilson's shivering.