Disclaimer: These guys aren't mine, including most of the characters, the hospital its self, and the song "Concrete Angel" by Martina McBride.

Note: I want to thank IceStar4621 for her help on this. I hope I pull it off effectively. Please review, and let me know if I did!

Chase was pacing around the conference room, a nervous wreck. Something was very wrong here, he just wasn't sure how all the pieces fit together. Cameron was there by nine, and she and House reviewed the overnight labs on the patient, but Chase's mind was otherwise occupied. There was a piece he was missing, something he wasn't seeing and without that piece the picture just didn't make sense. He wondered briefly if this was how House felt when he was trying to make a diagnosis.

His thoughts were interrupted by the rubber tip of a cane poking him in the stomach. "Are you going to be of any use to me, or are you just going to pace?"

Chase rolled his eyes. Something was seriously wrong here! Couldn't House see that? Of course House couldn't see that, he didn't have all the pieces, and he certainly had more than House. "I-just…well, I have a lot on my mind right now." He looked around. "Where did Cameron go?"

House pulled himself to his feet and balanced himself on the back of the chair. "Clinic. Where I should be sending you, but you're too distracted to be of any use. If I send you down there, you'll just try to hide, and you'll give away all my hiding places." House stepped back from the table and tossed something to Chase with his free hand. "Here. Give this to your girl when she gets back." Looking down at the small blue object in his hand, Chase saw Alex's iPod.

He rolled his eyes. "She's not my girl!" He shouted at House's back as the older man retreated to his office, but he made no sign that he heard. Chase sighed and sat down. Alex was not his girlfriend. A close friend, closer than he had ever had before, which was odd after only knowing her for a couple of months. But no, not his girlfriend. He would never risk the companionship of finally having a best friend for a shot at decent sex. No way!

On impulse, he put the headphones in his ears and scanned through the playlist. Several country songs, a few by Nickleback, some James Taylor and Bob Segar. More country. He saw a song that he'd never heard of, and the title intrigued him. Hitting play, he heard a beautiful female voice the list identified as Martina McBride. "Concrete Angel?" he mused. "What the hell does that mean?" The lyrics hit him like a ton of bricks.

She walks to school with a lunch she packed

Nobody knows what she's holding back

Wearing the same dress she wore yesterday

She hides the bruises with the linen and lace

The teacher wonders but she doesn't ask

It's hard to see the pain behind the mask

Bearing the burden of a secret storm

Sometimes she wishes she was never born

Through the wind and the rain she stands hard as a stone

In a world that she can't rise above

But her dreams give her wings and she flies to a place where she's loved

Concrete angel…

The last piece clicked into place in Chase's mind, as he dropped the iPod with a clatter. No way! No Fucking way!!! Oh God! All the breath left his body as he tried to digest the last piece of the puzzle. All her bruises, "accidents", the crutches, the things she blamed on her clumsiness when he'd never seen her be even the slightest bit clumsy without crutches. The fact that she always volunteered to stay overnight with the patient, no matter if she hadn't been home in days. The conflicting stories she had told him and House about her ankle. And the scary bastard that opened the door this morning. It all made sense now that he had the final piece, but it was certainly an ugly picture.

Suddenly one earphone was ripped from his ear. "I hate that question, don't make me repeat it!"

He looked up at House, thoroughly confused, and House sighed. "I said, 'Are you okay?' You look like you've seen a ghost!"

It took him a second to find words. "No. Worse." He stood up quickly, knocking his chair to the floor but paying it no mind. He had to do something. What? He couldn't do it alone. House wasn't mobile enough. Damn, he wished Foreman was still around. Oh, God! Leaving the iPod on the floor where it fell, he turned back to House. "Is Wilson here yet?"

House frowned. "I think s-"

"Gotta go!" Chase exclaimed, running for the door with all he was worth. House caught him by the shoulder.

"What is it?" He demanded softly, but it was still a demand.

Chase looked at him with sorrow and terror in his eyes. "There's no time. It's on her iPod. She's in trouble." With that, he was gone.

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Chase burst into Wilson's office like all the demons in hell were after him, much to the shock of the oncologist, who was talking to a patient. House was the only one who ever did this, and on the rare occasion he did interrupt, Chase ALWAYS asked the patient for forgiveness. This time, he didn't even acknowledge the young woman. He had another young woman on his mind, that was also in jeopardy. "Dr. Wilson, I need your help!"

Confusion and surprise warred for supremacy in his chocolate eyes, but exasperation won out. "Uh, kinda busy here, Chase. I should be done in about twenty minutes. Wait for me next door, and I'll be there as soon as I-"

"She could be dead in twenty minutes!" Chase roared, and Wilson's eyes widened.

"Who?" Wilson demanded. "You don't have a patient and-"

Chase cut him off. "Alex!"

Wilson's jaw clenched involuntarily, and he stood up, turning to the patient. "Mandy, I-"

She smiled a little, and stood up too. "Go. Someone else needs you now. I'll see you next week." She slipped past Chase, and Wilson looked at him expectantly.

"Well, what's wrong with Alex?"

Chase still couldn't put his revelation into words, couldn't make himself say the word "abuse" again, couldn't tell Wilson that he had told an abusive psychopath that Alex hadn't been at the hospital last night, that Alex had went home not knowing that he was in a rage at being woken up, and that whatever happened to her today was all his fault. So instead, he grabbed him by the sleeve. "Come on!" I'll explain on the way!" He pulled Wilson to the door, then stopped. "You don't have a gun, do you?"

"What?" exclaimed Wilson. "No!"

Chase scanned the office, hoping for something that could be used for a weapon, and his gaze fell on Alex's hockey stick. She had conned Wilson into playing a little with her a few days ago before a code was called that interrupted the game. Wilson was looking at Chase like he had gone insane. "What the hell are you going to do with that?!"

Chase was finally almost able to form coherent sentences. "Alex went home. He's going to kill her!"

This was not helping Wilson's opinion of Chase's sanity. "What?!" Chase gave up and just grabbed his arm again. Wilson followed, partly because of the Australian's death grip on his bicep, and partly because after all these years with House it was merely a conditioned response.

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Chase was finally able to explain himself to his captive/backup on the drive to the less-than-ideal neighborhood where their friend lived. At first, Wilson resisted, because no one wants to believe that's happening to their friends. "No!" he said. "That's insane! Chase, she's twenty-four years old! People that age who have been abused don't just stay and take the abuse! They run like scared rabbits on their 18th birthdays!"

Shaking his head, Chase disagreed with him gently. "Not always, Dr. Wilson. Not even most of the time. A lot of the time, children don't know there's any other way."

"She's not a child, Chase! She's a grown woman!"

"I know that, okay? But if that's all she's even known…we know what happened to her mom…but we don't know why. Maybe her mother couldn't deal with it, and just…"

Wilson shook his head. "Just left her daughter with an abusive asshole? What kind of parent would do that?" He looked over at Chase and winced. "Oh, yeah. Sorry."

Chase didn't acknowledge it. Just replied quietly, "It happens. And now this bastard is all she has."

By the time they made it to the door of her apartment, Wilson had accepted it, and was only half a step away from murderous. He actually wished he DID have a gun, but recognized it was probably for the best that he didn't. Chase wasn't even the half-step away. He looked like he could take the man apart with his bare hands. This lasted until Wilson pounded viciously on the door and he got his first look at their opponent.

The man, John Gray, stood several inches taller than both doctors, and possibly outweighed both of them combined. Alcohol radiated from every pore, the stench nearly overpowered Wilson. Chase, however, realized that in the years since his mother's death, he had not lost his tolerance to the smell. "Where is she?" He demanded, trying to sound brave despite the fact that this man looked as if he could step on them both and squish them like bugs.

Wilson, while somewhat more reasonable, but certainly no coward and frightened for his young friend, stepped up beside Chase. "Where's Alex?"

The man growled again, sounding like a rabid pit bull. "You again! I told you to go away! You couldn't listen, so now I'll deal with you!" Before either would-be heroes could react, he pulled a six-inch knife from his belt with one hand, and grabbed Chase by the collar with the other.

Chase saw where this was going a fraction of a second before it happened, but not in enough time to prevent it. He did, however, have time to get out a warning to Wilson. "Run!" he shouted just before a big, beefy hand closed around his shirt collar tight enough to choke him.

His captive's warning to his friend was unfortunate, but before the other man could say or do anything, he brought the knife to Chase's throat. "I don't think that would be a very good idea." His bloodshot eyes met Wilson's. "Do you?"

Wilson surveyed the crazy man, then allowed his eyes to meet Chase's terrified aqua eyes. Then he slowly shook his head.

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House was alone in his office when Alex slowly made her way back into the conference room. "Where is everyone?" she asked. House looked up from his game boy to see her, and immediately saw that something wasn't right. Her stance was off. She looked a little off-balance, and her left hand was tucked into her lab coat pocket halfway up her forearm, and she was putting so much pressure on the pocket that it pulled her lab coat askew. "What time is it?" He asked her.

Her watch was on her left hand. She contemplated trying to pull it out, then shook her head. "You have a clock on your computer."

"It's wrong."

She sighed, then in a moment of inspiration pulled her cell phone out of her other pocket. "Nine thirty-six."

Sitting the phone down on the table, she picked up Chase's crossword puzzle book from the shelf and was about to sit back down with it when House came to the office door, her iPod in his hand. "Alex," he asked in his kindest tone possible. "Can you get me the copy of Grey's Anatomy off the top shelf over there?"

Suspicion filled her eyes. "You're up. Why can't you get it?"

"Because I'm the boss. I have minions for things like that." She stared at him. He knew, and was trying to make her give in. Finally, he looked at her with something like compassion. "Look, either get the ten-pound book from the top shelf, or sit down and tell me who broke your arm." She still didn't reply. He sighed. "You're a doctor. You know not getting it fixed can cause nerve damage. You could be in pain for the rest of your life." He gestured with his cane, but she still seemed to be on another planet, not responding to him at all. "Look, just take off your lab coat. Let me examine your arm." He was aware that he sounded way too much like Wilson for comfort.

Finally, she dropped her gaze to the floor. "I can't."

House felt an unwelcome pang of something twist in his chest at her tone. He knew and respected her attitude, and knew what it cost her to sound so defeated. "You can. I'm a doctor too, remember? We'll get x-rays and deal with whoever did this to you later."

She looked back up again, something clearly broken in her eyes as well as her upper arm. "No, I mean I can't. Physically. I can't get my lab coat off. You'll have to help me."