Title: Mein Retter, which means "My Savior" in German
Rating: T, later M for ideologically sensitive material and graphic stuffs
Warnings: Slash [eventually, but not yet], possibly offensive material, potentially graphic violence. If you will be offended or upset by any of this, please do not read this fic. I have tried to be as accurate as possible, though this may, at some point, cause disturbance.
Pairings: House/Wilson, Chase/Cameron, Foreman/Thirteen, smidgens of House/Cuddy and House/Stacy
Disclaimer: House, MD is the property of FOX, David Shore, Heel Toe Production, etc.--not me. The historical information contained within is also not my own. If you would like me to list my sources, I will kindly do so. No plagarism is intended.
A/N: This is AU set in Nazi Germany, specifically in an unnamed concentrarion camp, though the setting will change as perspectives shift. Hopefully, I will be able to twist it so that it loosely follows cannon events. I have done my research, so you can count that the bulk of the information contained below is, indeed, factual. In order to better fit with their nationalities, I have changed some of the characters' names, but these will be noted in either a footnote or at the begining of the chapter in which they first appear. For any foreign terms or additional information, I have made footnotes, which can be found at the bottom of the page. If you would like any other info or are confused, feel free to contact me. If you have anything you would like to be in future chapters or any suggestions, please speak up!
Thnk you to my wonderful beta, Kiki-sama, for putting up with me and for her wonderful suggestions, including the lovely title. Here's to the begining of a beautiful partnership! Also thanks to H from Momosportif and Fishy for always offering lovely praise. Here you are!
Mein Retter Chapter One
It was pitch black when he awoke. He wasn't quite sure what he expected to see when he opened his eyes, perhaps the hard, wooden floor of his clinic where he had been attacked or even the walls of a jail cell but certainly not nothing.
He raised his head a few inches to try to get a better look around, only to rest it once again on the wall against which he appeared to be leaning as his head throbbed in sudden pain. He reached a tentative hand to finger the source of the pain radiating through his skull; there was a large bump forming on the back of his head, dried blood matting the hair around the site. A mild concussion, he diagnosed, bound to cause some nausea and even more pain but no lasting damage.
He cracked open his eyes again, having screwed them shut during his earlier agony. This time the darkness was not quite so black, and he could make out the vague shadows of other beings huddled silently in the darkness. When he squinted, he could see the forms of men and women and children pressed against the walls on the other side of the small, compact room through the legs of the many standing in the center. It was then that he noticed the steady noise permeating the air: the unmistakable sound of a train rumbling along its track.
Then, out of nowhere, a hand suddenly clasped his shoulder. He turned his head, fighting the wave of dizziness following his instinctual flinch, to see an older man studying him from behind a full mustache and bushy, white eyebrows. The man asked him something he didn't understand, probably in Polish, a language he only knew a smattering of. He and his wife had moved there almost three years earlier when the Third Reich had made it illegal for Jews such as himself to practice medicine back in Germany; however, most of the Poles he spoke with understood either German or his rudimentary Hebrew as well.
The man repeated himself, and, after struggling unsuccessfully to translate, he finally responded by shaking his head, wincing as the movement sent spots floating before his eyes.
"I don't understand," he croaked, his voice rough with thirst and disuse.
The stranger continued to stare for a time before pointing to himself with what he recognized to be an introduction, "I am Pietrek Dudek (1)."
He smiled, a gesture he was sure would look more like a grimace than anything else, and pointed to himself. "James Wilson."
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It was a long time before they reached their destination, determinable only by the gradual change in light showing through the cracks between the wall slats of the train car, and even that small grace was lost when evening fell once again. Wilson's stomach called out in hunger, and he fought nature's urge to relieve himself. The car was already filled with the suffocating stench of those who were not able to resist and the smell of the combined sweat of the almost forty people packed into the close quarters.
Eventually, though, the train slowed, and Wilson breathed a sigh of relief. Even if they were only stopping for a short time, he would be grateful to be allowed to stretch his legs and empty his bladder. The train finally came to a halt with a squeal of the engine breaks. It felt like an eternity before the door to Wilson's car was unlocked. After hearing nothing but the muffled shouted orders slithering their way through the miniscule gaps between the planks, the loud metal clang that rang out as the bolt was slid to the side sounded like a gunshot, startling every last passenger.
At least, Wilson hoped it was the lock.
He glanced back at the shrewd-looking young woman standing a little ways behind him and then at Pietrek to his right. It was with these two that he had traded speculations about this curious imprisonment during the long trip. The woman, whose name he couldn't remember, hauntingly suggested the possibility that they were being transported to the country to be "disposed of," as she put it. Wilson was not convinced. He did, however, agree that for whatever reason they were being shipped across the county, the German Schutzstaffel (2) had something to do with it.
His fears were confirmed when the heavy car door slid slowly open to silhouette a dark figure dressed in sleek gray against the bright light of multiple flashlights shined in their direction. Wilson blinked his eyes as he tried to accustom them to the sudden brightness that attacked his retinas as others closer to the door cowered from the men outside.
"Out!" the soldier in front ordered. "Everybody get out and line up over there with the others!"
It took Wilson a moment to realize that most, if not all, of the other passengers would not be able to understand the German-speaking men. He nudged Pietrek with his elbow and did his best to whisper in broken Polish, "He wants us to get out. We're supposed to line up outside."
Pietrek nodded and quickly informed those nearest to him in hushed tones. The passengers filed out past the armed German soldiers. They were led, like a herd of slow moving cattle, onto a wooden platform lit only by the light of flashlights and the gray sky of the approaching dawn where large, tight-knit masses of other prisoners stood staring up at the dark, towering walls opposite the train. Wilson stopped to gape, feeling as small as a bean sprout before the massive fortress. In the wall, a gate opened like a hungry maw preparing to swallow the lot of them.
Someone shoved Wilson from behind, and he stumbled after Pietrek to join the newly formed collection. He craned his head and scanned the crowd, straining to see if he knew anyone else in the sea of faces; he had long ago lost sight of the young woman.
Somewhere down the platform, he heard someone shouting in German. The soldiers nearest him began sorting them into single-file rows—the platform looked to be too short to fit them all in one line. They stood there for an eternity, or so it felt. Wilson stood silent, too afraid to whisper with his neighbors even when the soldiers guarding his section appeared to be out of earshot.
Ever so slowly, the sun rose out of the horizon, stretching its blood red arms to encircle the world below. The soldiers now began to pull people from the line, standing them on the end of the platform near the great stone walls; the others they led into the gates before them.
Pietrek was one of the ones taken aside.
The gray-suited man who had ordered them from the train yanked Wilson's newfound friend out of line by his once white shirt collar. Wilson wanted desperately to follow the one source of kindness he had found in this desolate place but, like the others around him, was shoved roughly towards imprisonment. Looking back just before he passed through the gates, he caught sight of Pietrek and the rest of the band being marched off the platform towards the surrounding woods.
Wilson suddenly felt sick to his stomach.
With nothing left to do but wait, Wilson studied his surroundings. Once he passed through the Jourhaus (3), there were only rows and rows of identical barracks as far as the eye could see. While staring off at the box-like structures, Wilson failed to notice when the men in front of him moved forward slightly. A hard shove in the back by one of the guards hastily brought his mind back to the present. Stepping forward, he turned his attention to his immediate surroundings.
The line appeared to be inching past a series of guards, who scrutinized each and every prisoner, making notes on the clipboards they brandished. When it was Wilson's turn at the end of the line, the examiner poked and prodded at Wilson's muscles, feeling the width of his shoulders and the definition in his biceps. The stout man dressed in gray nodded to his assistant, who then pointed Wilson in the direction of a large group standing off to the side; he glanced back over his shoulder to see a second group of people making their way towards a second, smaller gate. Among them was a young mother and her pretty child, and he smiled, thinking wistfully of his own wife back home.
Every so often a guard would arrive and lead off a handful of Wilson's group, maybe five or so at a time. He did not have to wait long until he was called over with four other prisoners--three men and a woman. As he trailed after the guard, Wilson kept his head high and eyes open; there was no need to watch the path on the hard-packed earth stamped firm by the tread of many feet. Again, the most he could see on the side occupied by the stone wall and what appeared to be a barbed-wire fence were a series of barracks labeled with the word "Block" and then a number.
They continued past Block Two, past Four, past Six, then between numbers Eight and Ten, across a wider path, and between Nine and Eleven before hurrying by Blocks Thirteen, Fifteen, and so on. Finally, they reached the end of their trek and came to a halt outside a low building. Here, they were handed off to yet another set of armed men, who ordered them inside in unquiet voices.
Once inside, they were processed through another long line of other men and woman. At the first station, they were made to strip naked and stand beneath a spray of frigid water. When they were finished with this semblance of a shower, they were each tossed a rough rag with which to dry off and marched, naked, to the next station. They were then seated on hard wooden stools and draped in dirty cloths, while behind them the buzz of what sounded like electric razors filled the room. Wilson flinched as the device touched his scalp. Though he was sad to lose his thick, brown locks, the doctor in him acknowledged that this was the most efficient way of delousing the incoming.
He could only watch as clumps of hair fell from his head into his lap and onto the floor to join the clumps already curled on the ground like small, lifeless animals. Wilson's nose itched as smaller hairs fell on it, tickling the sensitive skin. He wrinkled his nose and attempted to blow the hairs from his face but only succeeded in earning a glare from the man acting as barber. He sat still after that.
After their heads were completely shaved, the small company was moved to stand before a small group of austere looking men—some old, some young—who Wilson assumed to be medical personnel judging by the symbol of a twining serpent pinned to their lapels. The man elected to examine Wilson had him stand with his legs spread wide and his arms raised to shoulder height, making him feel slightly ridiculous. Under his piercing gaze, a shiver crawled up Wilson's spine having little to do with the brush of chill air on his bare skin. This man's eyes were empty; the pale brown held no light behind it. If the eyes were the window to the soul, then Wilson would be willing to bet that this man didn't have one.
Wilson wondered if this was a product of spending so much time in this place or if the man had always been that way. He hoped it was the latter.
After a quick look-over, the man ran gloved hands along Wilson's skin, occasional making notes on a form clamped to a clipboard. Wilson supposed the doctor was checking him for any sign of disease as well as inspecting his muscle tone yet again. He would undoubtedly be put to work, he thought, maybe making airplane parts or digging ditches. He would fare well enough.
Eventually they were each distributed a baggy navy and white vertically striped uniform and a pair of thin, cloth shoes. Wilson dressed in a hurry, eager to put another layer of protection between the guard's gaze and his naked body.
Wilson was then taken to another set of stools placed next to a long, wooden table covered with various pieces of hand-held machinery he couldn't identify and bottles of what looked like black ink. He took a seat next to a young man who had once had thick blond curls. The man glanced over at him questioningly in return. Wilson responded with a shrug.
Yet another S.S. guard, this one as nondescript as the rest, appeared and instructed them to hold out their left arms. Wilson complied and nudged the man beside him when he didn't respond; he must have been Polish.
Wilson watched nervously as the guard prepared a lethal-looking needle with black ink. The man held Wilson's wrist as he swiftly applied a simple tattoo to the inside of his forearm. The process stung quite bit and was extremely uncomfortable, but it was not nearly as awful as Wilson had always thought it would be. That is until his wrist was released and he could see a bright red patch forming over the irritated skin. Despite his better judgment, he couldn't resist poking the new set of markings that donned his arm and quickly recoiled in pain. He left the rest of his self-inspection to his eyes only; his tattoo was a string of numbers that read 44671, an identification number he supposed.
The rest of the time afterwards sped by him in a blur. Wilson was given a threadbare blanket and assigned to one of the Blocks. He supped that night on a meager meal of gelatinous stew and stale bread amongst what seemed to e the whole rest of the camp. After dinner, he trailed after the other residents of his block to evening roll-call, which seemed to consist of the entire list of prisoners standing in formation on the parade ground and waiting to be counted.
It was only after he had claimed a bunk inside his building that he had time to think, when the chaos in his rain was finally quiet. Julie. Would she miss him, would she wonder what had happened? Or would she assume he had just run off with another woman? As his thoughts strayed deeper into dark places, his mind conjured an even worse possibility: Was she even safe at home, or had she been taken too?
Luckily, these musings did not occupy his mind for long. He was far too physically and emotionally exhausted to waste more than a few minutes of sleep on things he would be unable to learn. Now, his mind and body demanded sleep
His eyes closed of their own accord, and he slept.
(1) Pietrek Dudek—Pietrek is the Polish form of "Peter". Dudek is, I believe, a Polish surname taken from Anne Dudek (Amber Volakis)
(2) Schutzstaffel—more commonly know as the S.S., this is a branch of the Nazi army
(3) Jourhaus—camp entrance and guard house