Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay in updating and thanks again for all of your kind reviews. Oh yeah - especially to Limaccia for choosing me to be the "lucky" author to get the grammar lesson and pointing out the handful of errors I appeared to have made - thanks ever so!!

Chapter 6

The ER at PPTH was overflowing with casualties from the building site. The hospital was no longer taking any new patients and ambulances were being diverted to other local hospitals. Due to half the ER staff being on site and slowly returning with some of the casualties, the rest of the medical staff had been drafted in to help out.

Wilson had been running his daily clinic but that had been cancelled due to the emergency. Foreman had been trying to keep House's army of potential new fellows entertained whilst they waited for the boss to show up - "where the hell is he anyway?" he thought to himself.

Chase had been getting ready to go home after an all nighter in surgery. Then he had seen Cameron as she was leaving for the building site and he decided to stay at the hospital. There was no point going home anyway - he wouldn't have slept until he knew she was back at the hospital safely.

Chase and Cameron had "officially" been seeing each other for several months now. No more sneaking around in janitor's cupboards or regular Tuesday meetings. The couple had become very close and Chase was going with Cameron to her parents house the following weekend - a serious step in any relationship. Chase was secretly nervous about meeting Cam's parents but was also excited. He had worked hard at persuading Cameron that their relationship could be more than pre-arranged meetings on a Tuesday.

Chase even felt as if the cloud that was House was finally lifting as well. Sure, Cameron had said on many occassions, and not just to him, that she was over House but there was still that nagging doubt at the back of his mind. Chase occassionally caught House and Cam talking and thought he could still some sparkage between the two. Then he would chide himself for doubting her.

House had been shocked by the old gangs reappearance at the hospital, even going as far as entertaining the thought for a microsecond that he may have been imagining them altogether. Wilson had confided this very fact in Chase shortly after House had discovered the truth. After he had found out House had made several, albeit brief, trips to the ER to see Cameron. These visits had become less and less recently and Chase was glad of it.

Chase's train of thought was shattered as the ER doors flung open to admit one final patient - all the rest were now enroute to other hospitals. Chase rushed forward to take on this new patient "What have we got?" he said in his broad Australian accent.

"Female casualty - she was hit by some falling debris" said the attending EMT. "Has been unconscious since we arrived on scene. On arrival she was trapped under some of the scaffold. We had to wait for the fire department to free her before we could get her out. She has an obvious head wound. She arrested on the way here. We managed to get her intubated and her heart is holding its own for now. Query spinal trauma - she's been immobilised throughout."

The team lifted her from the ambulance gurney onto a hospital one as gently as they could to prevent aggrevating any spinal injury the woman had suffered. Chase went to work checking the womans vital signs and asking for extra lines to be put in so that the necessary fluids and drugs could be administered.

Chase didn't see Sarah, the young nurse who had been helping out at the accident site, arrive shortly after and slip quietly into the main reception area of the hospital.

Sarah had gotten to know House quite well in the short time she had known him and she guessed that informing the Dean of Medicine that one of her staff members was currently buried alive had slipped his mind. By the way Chase was still working, Sarah guessed that by some miracle word hadn't yet reached him either.

Lisa Cuddy was enjoying a quite 5 minutes in her office when Sarah came to find her. She had been rushing around attending to her duties as the Hospital Administrator for about 2 hours now. She needed to take a moment to gather herself for the next 2 hours which were likely to be just as manic. She looked up when she heard the timid knock at the door.

"Dr Cuddy" Sarah said "Could I have a word? I'm not sure if you've heard but I've just come back from the accident site" Sarah's voice trailed off.

"Yes of course. How many casualties are still on site?" Cuddy asked, so far unsure as to why this junior nurse had felt the need to come to her to give her a personal report on the situation.

"That's just it. Most of the remaining casualties have been extracted from the scene and shipped out to other local ER's. There is at least one, possibly two casualties that are still at the site" Sarah said moving forward towards Cuddy "One of them is Dr Cameron."

"What?" Cuddy said in disbelief. She had known of course that the site was going to be dangerous and she had thought twice about letting her ER team leave the hospital to be directly involved in the rescue operation, but the fire department had specifically asked her for the hospitals assistance and this left Cuddy with little choice. "What happened? Is she alright?"

"I wasn't that close when it happened but I think she was in the middle of the scaffold trying to reach another patient when the debris collapsed in on itself" Sarah explained. "Our team tried to reach Dr Cameron but we were ordered down by the Fire Chief. Dr House stayed up there..." Sarah never got to finish the sentence.

"HOUSE?! What the hell is he doing there and why the hell hasn't he called this is?" Cuddy was fuming, She shouldn't have been surprised by House's behaviour but this was a totally different situation - this involved a member of her staff and an ex-member of House's own team.

"I kinda guessed that House would have overlooked telling you so I thought I'd better come and see you myself" Sarah explained as she watched Cuddy moved towards her desk and pick up the phone "Dr Cuddy - wait. I don't think Dr Chase knows yet."

Cuddy's hand hovered just above the phone. Her first instinct had been to phone House and find out what the hell was going on. She hadn't even thought of Chase who was currently out there working in the ER. She was of course aware of Cameron and Chase's relationship - it was difficult not to be aware of it when they all worked together.

"Sarah, I need you to go and get Doctor Chase for me. Don't tell him why, just make something up and tell him I need to see him" Cuddy told Sarah who dutifully scuttled off to find him. Cuddy had to work out how she was gonna tell Chase what had happened to Cameron. She didn't have long - Chase appeared not 5 minutes later.

"Hi. Did you want me? It's just they're pretty short staffed out there and they need all hands on deck" Chase said looking at Cuddy and noticing the worried look on her face "What? What is it?" he demanded.

"Chase - it's Cameron. I don't have the full details but it appears there's been an accident and she's trapped at the site. I'm just about to ring House - he's with her" Cuddy told him carefully.

"House?! What's he doing there? I bet he pushed her into this with some sarcastic comment. If anything happens to her ..." Chase started to say.

"Lets just get the details before you start planning to get revenge on House" Cuddy said holding her hands up as if to silence Chase. She picked up the receiver and dialled House's cell number.

At the same time, back at the building site ...

House was still shouting into his radio. Following the retching and Cameron's exclamation there had been nothing but static from the radio. "HEY YOU!" House shouted at the Fire Chief "When are you planning on getting your butt into gear and rescuing the damsel in distress? I'm fast running out of insults for you."

"Somehow I don't believe that" the Chief whispered and then turned to House and spoke loudly "We're going as fast as we can - you wouldn't want the rest of this stuff to cave in on top of Dr Cameron now would you?"

"No, couldn't have that, who would teach me how to write my name in girly script?" House replied. The Chief just looked at him in disbelief when House's cell rang.

"Cuddy!" House said cheerfully as he answered his cell "Not really the best time to talk - could you and the fun bags call back later when I'm not trying to save the hospital from having to pay out on a 'death in service' claim?"

"Why the hell haven't you called me? If you're trying to piss me off House, well done, you've succeeded" Cuddy said sharply, she was in no mood to argue with House today. "What's going on down there? I've got Chase with me" she said hoping that House would come to his senses and actually give her the information she wanted. She looked over at Chase who was on the other side of her desk. She thought he was remaining incredibly calm despite the situation.

"Well, Saint Cameron decided to take it upon herself to endeavour to save the entire building site herself and has now been rewarded by being trapped underneath about three storey's worth of scaffold" House replied "I've spoken to her. She sounds pretty banged up - I'm pretty sure she's losing blood from somewhere as she said she was getting cold despite it being hotter than hell down there. The dumb-ass Fire Chief could find a haystack let alone a needle so my confidence in him finding Cameron any time soon is slim to none existent."

"What else? I can tell there's something else you're not telling me House" Cuddy asked. She could tell he was holding something back - hell, he'd been doing it for so many years now Cuddy was getting to be somewhat of an expert in reading House like a book.

"Are you on speakerphone?" House asked.

"No. You can talk - Chase is here but he's not on the line" Cuddy replied, instantly worried by the tone of House's voice.

"I was speaking to Cameron via the radio she has with her. It suddenly cut off but not before I could hear what sounded like Cameron's lungs giving up the fight. I haven't been able to get her on the radio since" House replied. Cuddy could hear something unusual in his voice - was that concern?

"Come on" Chase asked angrily "Tell me what's going on!"

"In a minute" Cuddy replied abruptly and turned her back on him whilst she carried on the conversation "House, what do you really think is going on?" she asked.

"I don't know" he sighed "I don't have enough information..." just then the radio crackled into life.

"HOUSE?!" Cameron's voice was filled with fear.

"Gotta go fun bags - speak to you later" House said into his cell before he hung up.

"House? HOUSE?!" Cuddy shouted futilely down the phone "Goddammit. Chase -" Cuddy turned round to speak to the young Australian but all she saw was an empty room - Chase had gone.