Disclaimer: I don't own them I simply borrow them to play with, I didn't ask but I'm sure David Shore won't miss them, I'll put them back where I found them when I'm done. I make no money from this so please, no suing the poor college student!

A/N: I am so sorry this one took so long to get out but I have been very sick with the flu and busy with work, we are trying to get this pilot program off the ground not to mention that I start school again soon because I am taking summer classes, so life has been insane.

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Redux

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Chapter nine-Into the Light and Into the Darkness

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"The New York City police special victims unit has been informed and a picture of Greg has been given to them. Apparently they have been tracking these guys for some time, they are suspected in the abductions of children all over the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut area. They are believed to be involved in child trafficking." The FBI agent informed Cuddy.

"Trafficking?!" Cuddy asked in horror.

"Believe it or not this is a good thing. It means they aren't going to hurt him. If they abducted him with plans on selling him they wouldn't harm him as that would be counterproductive and a waste of their time. Most of the people who buy children like that are doing so because they have given up on adoptions. There is much less red tape to go through if they just buy a child, that way they also get to pick things like age, gender and even eye color. Things you cannot really do with adoption." he explained.

This didn't make Lisa feel any better as she was sure the agent had intended it too. Her stomach was in knots, she couldn't imagine what House was going through and she hoped he really was truly unharmed.

She peered over at Wilson who was sitting on his own in the rocking chair curled up in his blanket, his thumb in his mouth, eyes drooping closed. It had been another hard night and once again the little one had not gotten much sleep. Looking at the child so small and miserable, if for no other reason, she hoped House was ok… for Wilson's sake.

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House peered around the room. It was nothing but a cement basement. It was small and rather dark, not much lighter then the little room he had been stuck in had been.

There was another door to the side, which House knew was the bathroom, and then the spicket in the wall which the hose was attached too. In the middle of the room was one of those foldable bridge tables with two chairs. A discarded pack of cards and some empty beer cans littered its top.

House padded slowly and quietly over to the third door, which, by process of elimination, he knew had to be the exit.

Though the basement wasn't all the large, House found that he needed to stop a few times to keep the room from spinning or to swallow down a cough, which made his chest feel like it was going to explode.

Taking in shallow breaths, as to not induce a coughing fit, House eventually made it to the door, without making too much noise.

Reaching out he grabbed the door handle, the door was blessedly unlocked, he turned the handle in triumph opening the door…

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A hand gently rubbed at Wilsons back easing him into the waking world.

"Mommy…" The still mostly sleeping child croaked.

"It's me." Lisa corrected him.

"Oh…" Wilson rubbed at his eyes, seeming almost disappointed as he pushes himself up.

Lisa had hated to wake him. He hadn't been getting much sleep so she wanted him to rest when he could. It was a shame to get him up now seeing as he was actually able to sleep without a nightmare at the moment. But the FBI had sent over a sketch artist to work with James to see if he could remember enough to give them at least a rough composite of the abductor. And, besides the fact that James would be very unhappy if he wasn't woken for that, Cuddy didn't want him to get into the habit of sleeping too much in the middle of the day, it would be very hard to get his sleep schedule back on track if… no when, they found House. And really they didn't need more to deal with than they were already going to have.

"The forensic artist is here, James." She informed him gesturing with a tilt of her head to the young man sitting in one of the visitor's chairs by the table.

Wilson nodded and slid off of his bed, padding in sock clad feet over to the other chair that had been placed across from the artist.

"Okay, can you tell me how the man's head was shaped?" The artist asked, begining his rather long list of questions.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, James answered all the man's question on the kidnapper's appearance to the best of his ability, stopping every now and then to try and remember. It was really hard, his brain was foggy unwilling to recall the monster's face. But he wanted so bad to be able to help find House that he was almost forcing his mind to remember things that were, perhaps, a tad to traumatic for his regressed psyche.

By the time he had finished his heart was pounding in his ears and tears were welling in the corner of his eyes.

The sketch artist dropped the pencil and sighed rubbing his eyes and looking down at his sketch before lifting it up to show Lisa.

"Looks familiar?" He asked bemusedly, there was a reason he disliked working with children for such occurrences were not uncommon.

Lisa looked at the picture… really it would have been funny if the situation had been slightly different. She shook her head a bit and walked over to Wilson where she knelt down so that they were face to face.

"Are you sure that is who you saw, Jimmy?" She asked the child who nodded his head fervently.

Taking the drawing from the artist she held it where Wilson could see it.

"Sweet heart, this is Freddy Krueger." She explained gently.

James' eyes went wide. He hadn't realized it when he was describing the man, but he did look exactly like Freddy Krueger, and while Wilson's mind was a bit foggy and confused he knew that wasn't right.

Letting out a sob he hid his face in his hands in shame. House needed his help and he couldn't do anything right!

Lisa reached out and lifted Jimmy up from under his arms. Sitting in the chair she had just lifted him from she placed him in her lap where he immediately hid his face in her neck.

"Hey, hey, it's okay." She assured.

"Noooo, it's not okay" Wilson cried "House woulda been able to do if for me." He sobbed.

Cuddy rubbed his back and looked up at the sketch artist for help. The man sighed and nodded.

"Listen, this actually happens quite frequently with children. They have something traumatic happen and their mind associates the person who did whatever bad thing with monsters and bad guys they have seen on TV." He explained.

"I… I wana try again." Wilson said, peering up at the man. He could do better he knew he could!

The artist wanted to say no, he knew it would just be a waste of his time but the look Cuddy was giving him told him he better never again get sick or hurt in the Princeton area if he said no, so picking up his pencil he nodded to the boy and said "Alright then… how was his head shaped?..."

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House made his way up, what seemed to him like millions of steps, out of the basement.

He found himself in a very old looking, dusty house. There were filthy, moth eaten slip covers over threadbare furniture, tables and chairs that were missing legs or arms not to mention enough cobwebs adorning the ceilings to knit a sweater for Sasquatch.

The air was more parts dust then oxygen and House was finding it nearly imposable to breath. He was quickly losing the battle against the coughing fit which had been threatening to take him down. His lungs felt as if they were going to explode as he tried not to breath in hopes the nagging tickling in his chest and at the back of his throat would just go away.

The house was large and rather confusing; House wasn't so sure where to find the front door, or even the back one for that matter. The hallways made this sort of winding maze with closed and sometimes locked doors on either side. House found himself trying nearly every door, but the ones that weren't locked merely landed him in another dust infested room.

No longer able to simply hold his breath, House quickly smacked a hand over his own mouth to stifle the sounds of the hacking coughs which caused him to double over with their force.

Misery was nothing new to Gregory House and neither really, was fear. He was a man… child, who had spent many years both in misery and in fear. However, much to his dismay, he found, it was never something you got used to and so he felt the force of both emotions rather keenly as he attempted to stand up straight without getting dizzy so he could resume his search of an exit. He had to get out of there before one of those idiotic thugs got back!

Whimpering slightly, he stood again and trudged on. Making his way through the hallways one at a time, taking far more time then he was comfortable with, till he finally reached the front door.

He could see the sun light fragmented through the etched glass window panes of the front door, making rainbow patterns on the floor. It looked to be mid day…

'Must have been gone very near three days' House figured, because there was no way that it was only the next day. His sense of time may have been off but it wasn't that far off and he had been locked in that room for at very least, the entire rest of the week. And even that had felt like months instead of days.

Reaching out tentatively, House grabbed the doorknob, he could feel the freedom, he was very nearly there, his plan had worked out just right but he couldn't help the little butterflies in his stomach. Things very rarely worked out for him. Everything he touched seemed to crumble to dust.

The only think he had ever been good at had been diagnostics and even then, he hadn't been a very good doctor at least not in the entire sense of the word. Sure he was a brilliant diagnostician and he saved lives but he lacked the human skills that made a really truly good doctor. He knew that, even if he tried to pretend like it wasn't actually important. He had to deny it, if he acknowledged it then he would have to face that he wasn't as good a doctor as he could or should be and if he had to do that, his world would fall around his ears… Not that it really mattered now. He couldn't practice anymore anyway. At least not at the moment, and that was his fault too!

He shielded his eyes with one hand as he reached for the door with the other. His eyes weren't used to the light and he had no wish for his head to hurt any more than it already did.

He fumbled for a moment with the knob, his hands were clammy and the tarnished copper seemed to want to slip right through his grip.

Tightening his grip as much as his shaking body would allow, House finally managed to get the knob to turn and he quickly yanked the door open.

He stepped out into the cool air and shivered a little bit. Removing his hand from where it shaded his eyes, he kept his head down instead so he could use both hands to pull at his sleeves in hopes of some warmth.

Not wanting to waste anytime and thus push his luck, he picked up his pace a bit as he headed down to the street. He wanted to run but there was no way his lungs would support that and he knew it.

His eyes finally adjusting to the sun light, House was able to look up just in time to see a hand holding a blue rag reach out in front of his face from behind him.

The last thing he registered before darkness overtook him was the smell of Ether…