A/N: Character Death.

Chapter 3: Suicide

"Are you done yet?" House asked irritably, kicking Wilson's bedpost. He was in a fetal position, crying from the shock of what he'd seen at the village. None of the recruits were quite the same as they had been that morning, but Wilson was worse. Killing wasn't in his nature, especially when it came to the elderly and the young.

"Does it matter?" Wilson shot, voice cracking.

"Yes, it does. I'm going to give you ten minutes while I radio the base. When I get back, you'd better have this crap sorted out."

House picked up Wilson's .45 and left the bunker.

"Who has the tags?" House asked, striding into Taub and Foreman's bunker. "I need to do a KIA report."

"I've got them," Chase said, digging the dog tags of the fallen men out of one of his cargo pockets and handing them to House. House made foreman call the base, and sat on the ground next to Chase.

"Who knows Wilson?" He asked, eyes drilling into the men.

"I went to school with him," Chase offered, picking up a pack of cigarettes lying on Foreman's bunk. He contemplated smoking one, then put them down. "Any reason?"

"He went to high school in Australia?"

"No. I immigrated before that. What's wrong with him?"

"He's bawling his eyes out over what happened at the village. All he did was kill two old guys. They would've died anyway."

"He's not a killer. He's the kind of boy who stayed after school to clean chalkboards. Not the one demanding smaller children's dinner money."

"Does he have any kind of mental disorders? I need to know if he'll be prone to depression."

"No that I know of. He's…a little…well; it's not really a big deal...."

"Chase, anything you hide could easily have detrimental effects on this squad. If he's nuts, we'll all be dead by tomorrow morning."

"He's gay. Not openly, but he's definitely not straight."

"I just needed to know if he was crazy or just a pussy."

"Definitely the latter."

"The base wants bodies," Foreman interjected, "what should I tell them?"

House sucked in a deep breath. "There aren't any. Just leave it at that."

"Why did you burn them?" Chase asked. He turned an empty crate over and sat on it, tired of the mud soaking into what was left of his pants. Foreman sighed and relayed House's comments to the operator.

"It was just the orders," House said. "If we'd tried to call in a chopper, the entire forest would've lit up. It would have been a siren. Given up our position. We had to make sure no one got the bodies."

House looked at his watch and abruptly stood up and left the bunker, leaving Chase alone with what he'd just said.

"You done?" House asked, stepping into his bunker. Wilson was sitting on his rack and staring at the ground, no longer crying.

"Yes, sir," Wilson said in a monotone.

"I'm not angry. I just can't have you falling apart after missions like that, because it will happen again. If you can't—" House's speech was cut off by a single gunshot. "Get your rifle, now! Go down to Chase!"

House cocked the .45 he'd taken from Wilson and drew out his knife, running down the trench. The shot had come from the direction of Kutner and Cleary's bunker. He wondered why there was only one shot, and turned the corner.

"Damn it!"

Kutner lay dead on the floor of the trench, M-16 in his right hand. He had shot himself.

"Chase!" House barked upon hearing boots crunch against gritty mud and wood planks. "Get me a poncho and a medevac! Nobody comes in here!"

Kutner's blood had started to creep towards House's boots, staining the scuffed toes. Chase threw him a poncho, and he hastily wrapped Kutner's body with it.

"Give me a hand," House said to Foreman. They lifted Kutner's cold, limp body out of the trench for the helicopter to pick up.

"Seven men in two days," House remarked, walking away from Kutner's bunker. Foreman and Taub were left to clean up the blood and write to his family.

No one slept that night. It had only taken Kutner one day to decide to shoot himself; the other wondered if the same fate would find them. Thoughts of the things they'd seen in the village found them that night while they listened to the rockets flying by over head. Small bursts of fire kept them awake, forcing them to think of how it felt to kill.

"Why did Kutner kill himself?" Wilson wondered aloud, turning over on his bunk. It was difficult to sleep in mud.

"Some men just can't deal with it," House explained. "And occasionally, they kill themselves. Sometimes they walk into enemy territory, sometimes they shoot themselves."

"Is that why you took my pistol?"

"Yep."

"I don't want to die."

"Obviously. No one wants to die. Not out here, at least."

Wilson cast him an ill smile. "What are we doing tomorrow?"

"Nothing. The orders were to stay put. They're launching rockets everywhere, so it's really not safe to go out."

"For how long?"

"Until they say otherwise."

House rolled over, adjusted his helmet, and went to sleep. Wilson stared up at the dirty plywood ceiling of the bunker, thinking. He didn't want to die. He'd signed up to find Danny, after his mother had received a notice saying that Danny would send half of his paycheck home. The morning after, Wilson had proudly marched down to the service office and signed up for the Marines, thinking that he would eventually meet up with his brother. The war had proved him wrong, however, and now he lay awake, wondering if Danny had been killed by a bomb dressed up as a civilian.