EDIT: Thank you to Dumdidum for pointing out my embarassing German mistakes. I cannot for the life of me spell "fuehrer"; I always forget the first "e". I also fixed some typos I noticed.

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 plagiarism is intended.

A/N:This is AU set in Nazi Germany, specifically in an unnamed concentration 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!

Mein Retter Chapter Two

Wilson was given work at the nearby quarries transporting piles of rock from the crude elevators to trucks waiting to cart it away. Everyday, he lifted as much stone as he could carry and shuffled the several hundred meters where he dropped his load on the ground, careful of his toes, for the others to load; it was backbreaking work. He supposed it could be worse—he could be chipping rock at the bottom of the pit, where there was the constant threat of injury from falling rubble or the workers' tools.

Wilson had only been on the job for a little more than a week when one such accident occurred. All of a sudden, a strangled wail of pain rose from somewhere in the pit. Wilson and his fellow workers immediately dropped what they were doing and rushed to peer over the edge of the quarry. These were not the grunts or cries of pain that accompanied a whipping doled out by one of the guards; this was something else entirely.

On one of the levels not so far below, a man knelt on the ground clutching his forearm near his elbow. Though Wilson could see that he gripped his wound tightly, he could not keep the slick blood from seeping from beneath his fingers.

Already a guard was rushing up the narrow path to reach the injured man. He leaned closer and inspected the man's arm, shaking his head to himself. He raised his eyes to where the workers were crowded above. He pointed to Wilson's group and shouted something they could not quite hear. All the same, they scurried away from the edge and hastened to get back to work, glancing over their shoulders to make sure that their blockfuehrer (1) did not see them slacking.

The supervisor appeared at the end of the serpentine path, all but dragging the poor, unfortunate man by his good arm. A quick glance at the red triangle donning the man's work uniform identified him as a political prisoner.

Wilson was the closest, and the guard gestured for him to come over. He obeyed, halting for the man he recognized as another uterscharfuehrer (2) by the single button pin on his collar patch and the silver-colored piping lining his shoulders and collar. Wilson kept his head bowed respectfully, fearful of offending the imposing soldier, but peered up at him through his eyelashes. The man's neatly slicked-back hair peeked from beneath this cap—blond, like many of the guards—and his green eyes seemed more stern than cruel.

"I need you to take this man to the infirmary," he ordered in some strange, backwater German accent Wilson couldn't place, shoving the man in his direction. "Do you understand?"

Wilson nodded hastily. He would gladly set aside his labor for as long as it took to escort the man. He knew where the infirmary was, though he had never been inside the low-set building that stood off by itself on the far edge of camp.

Wilson walked close to the wounded man's side, ready to support his weight at a moment's notice if needed. He offered meaningless platitudes to occupy his mind and instructions to keep the pressure on the open wound. The man muttered a strangled "Thank you" as they finally approached the infirmary, but that was all.

Wilson held the door open and ushered him inside. The infirmary was surprisingly empty; no bodies occupied the rumpled sheets on the rows of vacant beds. There had been patients there recently, but there were none to be seen now.

"Excuse me? Is there anybody here?" he called, leading his charge to a nearby cot.

He was rewarded with a metallic clang such as a tray being knocked over makes and a loud curse from somewhere further back in the clinic area. A head covered in unruly, graying hairs poked out from behind an open door several rows of beds down the long hall. A tall body garbed in a disheveled uniform followed. A look of curious confusion was pasted across his unshaven face, though it was quickly replaced with annoyance. He emerged from the doorway, his stride long and graceful despite the wooden cane he leaned heavily upon.

"What the hell are you doing here?" the man—a medic, identified by the snake emblem pinned to his collar patch—demanded.

"Ah—" Wilson sputtered. He'd never been this alone with any of the guards before, and the doctor's piercing gaze made him anxious. He hadn't thought far enough ahead to worry about whether or not his presence would bother the infirmary staff. "The Utersharfuehrer sent me, sir. This man's cut his arm and needs to be sutured."

The guard gave him a strange look but turned to examine the patient's still slowly bleeding wound. He clamped the man's hand over it again and moved to gather a clean rag and other necessary materials from cabinets and trays placed strategically around the room. Wilson stood awkwardly nearby, unsure of whether he should stay or leave. When the man returned to the bedside, he brandished a small wooden dowel.

"Bite down on this," he instructed. "You're going to need to hold him still while I sew him up."

Wilson gaped at him in shock. "You're going to do it without anesthesia?"

The odd stare returned. The medic explained, "We can't waste supplies on a worker, Jew or no. Now hold his arm steady."

Wilson did what he was ordered, quietly whispering to the man to sit on his other hand. The procedure was quick, though it was a struggle to hold the man's arm in place. The patient didn't scream much, but he breathed heavily around the wood clamped between his teeth.

"You're lucky," the medic told him. "You managed to avoid severing any of the major arteries and only nicked the tendon. You should be able to do light labor for the next couple of weeks while it heals."

The man thanked the doctor earnestly and rose to leave but was quickly ordered to lie down and rest while he recovered from his blood loss. Wilson edged towards the door, intent on returning to work before he was missed—he had been gone too long already—but was halted by the guard's voice.

"Jew!" he called from inside his office once again. "Come here."

Wilson couldn't help his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. It was one thing to be referred to by his race when in a group as he had been long before his arrival in the camp but another entirely to be addressed as though it were his name. But the man didn't say it with venom, none that he could hear anyway. And so he obeyed, as was expected of him, the Jew.

He stood stock still just inside the doorway, not looking in the man's direction. "Yes, sir?"

"You speak German."

It was not a question but seemed to require an answer all the same. "Yes, sir."

"But you are Jewish?"

"Yes, sir."

"How?"

Wilson's brow furrowed in confusion. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the guard had turned from his desk and was now studying him with blue eyes shining. "What do you mean, 'How'?"

"You are Jewish, and yet you speak flawless German. How is this?"

"I may have been brought here from Poland, sir, but I was raised in Munich. Why wouldn't I speak German?" He was aware that his answer might sound too cheeky and cringed in anticipation of whatever kind of rebuke might follow.

The guard, however, did not pay it notice and continued, "The German newspapers and propaganda flyers all report that Jews are incapable of speaking German. Until now I hadn't seen any evidence to the contrary within the camp."

Wilson scoffed, "If you don't mind me saying, sir, that's probably because all of the other Jews here are Polish."

"You shouldn't speak to your superiors like that," the guard warned, but the corner of his lips twitched upwards at Wilson's comment. "I think some of them are Czech."

"My apologies."

He snorted and shook his head slightly at Wilson's response. "I'm sure."

Wilson didn't know what else to say, so he remained quiet, absentmindedly toying with the hem of his shirt. The silence felt unfamiliar, yet not uncomfortable, like a new suit worn for the first time.

"What's your name?" the man finally asked, his deep baritone rich with something Wilson couldn't place.

He answered with both his first and last names, unsure as to why this guard would care to know who he was—by his name, no less, not the identification number tattooed to his forearm.

"But I don't know your name, sir," he said, almost immediately regretting it. If he had learned anything during his time here, it was that the Germans were not obligated to tell them anything.

"Doktor Haus (3)," he said simply, his thin lips curling into a small smirk. "I'm the Head of the Infirmary—the SS-Standortarzt (4)."

Haus. Wilson rolled the name around in his mind, feeling the taste of it on his tongue. And the man was the Head of the Infirmary, no less. Here was the first man to show him any form of kindness since his arrival, and he was of so high a rank that Wilson hadn't had the opportunity to see a soldier of his stature up close. Though not all the guards were cruel, none had treated him as anything other than an utterly disposable beast of burden; most Poles tolerated him, and the rest of the prisoners ignored his presence completely.

"How do you know so much about stitching a wound? Most people without medical training have never even heard the word 'suture'."

Wilson massaged the back of his neck embarrassedly. "I'm a doctor, too. Or, I was."

All at once, Haus's expression darkened, and the playful twinkle disappeared from his eyes. "I wouldn't publicize that, if I were you. It'd be better if you kept your mouth shut about any past occupations you might have had."

"Why's that, sir?" Wilson asked, taken aback.

"The intellectuals and artists are always the first to go when they start making room for new arrivals," he informed him gravely. "You'll live longer if you keep your personal life private."

Wilson was, quite simply, stunned. He knew that Jewish professors and the like had been arrested in Germany at the beginning of Hitler's reign and had heard tell that they were also targeted within the ghettos near Poland's major cities, but he had never thought that this persecution might continue inside the concentration camps.

"Oh," he said meekly. "Thank you for warning me, sir?"

Haus grunted in response and turned back to his desk. He snatched up a piece of paper covered in what was obviously a doctor's handwriting. "Give that to your blockfuhrer (1). It explains where you were and why that other guy didn't come back with you."

Wilson took the note and muttered a quiet "Thank you, sir" before leaving.

He allowed himself a small smile as he closed the door to the infirmary behind him. This Doktor Haus was quite unlike anyone he had ever met, especially the other camp soldiers. He smoothed his face back into an expression of blank passivity as he passed a guard, holding Haus's letter in plain view. He hoped it would offer sufficient authorization for his unsupervised walk through camp.

1) Blockfuehrer—a supervisory position overseeing order within the barracks; an utersharfuhrer

2) Utersharfuehrer—the most common non-commissioned officer rank, overseeing 7-15 people; equivalent to a corporal or sergeant

3) Doktor Haus—"doktor" is German for "doctor" [I figured this was self-explanatory, but still]; "Haus" is German for "House"

4) SS-Standortarzt—chief S.S. doctor in a company, here that position is held by the Head of the Infirmary

A/N 2: I decided I would add my notes down here at the end. As for Jesse Spencer's eye color, all sources say it's blue, but it really, really looks green or at least gray. I also want to thank everyone who either faved or alerted my story. I love all of you guys! Traditionally, like to answer my reviews all at once when I post the next chapter, but that gets to be a problem when I don't update until an eon later. Consequently I'm back-logged. So, if you reviewed, your name should be somewhere below. Here we go:

endsoftime: I certainly will be continuing this, however slowly. I have the whole thing outlined, so I won't forget no matter how long my break.

archangelnetwork: Thank you so much for your praise! I sincerly hope you enjoy the next few chapters.

MisFlajack: I'm glad that you were able to put aside your initial skepticism to give my story a try.

Plum Pudding: Thank you for your input all those ages ago. I assure you that this does not stem from some "weird fetish". I do indeed enjoy the research portion; though it will eventually stray into the land of the implausible. Then again, House has never been one to follow conventions.

Taylor: Thank you! I hope you enjoy the continuation.

DrHouseLuvr479: Your glowing praise makes my heart warm with joy. Thank you so very much, dear. If you ever have any input to add, do not hesitate. I may have the main events vaguely outlined but the details are always up in the air. Also, I want to read your fic if you and your friend ever decide to write it. A "masterpiece"... I blush.

Akai Murasaki: I want to give you special thanks for all your help as my official Polish correspondent. A friend of mine sent me an excellent, thoroughly researched site that is more reliable than my ancient baby name book, so hopefully we won't have another "Pietrek" mistake. If you notice any other flaws, please, by all means let me know.

Myrra2003: Sorry to keep you waiting. I hope you're pleased with House's identity.

BertieTiger: Thank you for your encouragement. It's so surreal to see that you and many of my other favorite authors have taken notice of my humble story.

BandGeek58407: You bring up an interesting point. I was a bit worried about how the intensity of Wilson's reaction would be received. I think though that Wilson is detaching himself from the situation as a coping mechanism. As horrifying as the turn of events is, having a breakdown will not help him survive, and I think subconsciously Wilson realizes this. Thank you for the reading suggestion; I will certainly look into it.

13th Dead End: Thank you, but is it really that bizarre?

Totea: Thank you very much. I'm glad to have earned you respect. It's true that I enjoy the research nearly as much as the writing itself. I felt that the only way I could in clear conscience write a story about this era was to honor it by being as accurate as possible.

Kim: Thank you. I'm gld that you were willing to take a chance on me.

i luv ewansmile: Thank you very much, but how is it "ironic"?

DragonHunter200, DXRULES103, Nana, Shadowb3, Jisa, carmen rose: Thank you very much for your review.