Author's Note: I know, I know. I take forever. School is HELL. Test tomorrow. *groan* Kill me? I'm going to fail because I don't understand anything about it. Ughh. Thanks to Alicia for beta.

Disclaimer: Don't own anything that you've seen on the telly. Jenny and Milana are mine. Go me?

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House groaned loudly, running a hand over his face while saying: "Jen, right now is really not the time for you to be caring about my mental status. I've got my condition under control though, thanks."

"When was the last time you had a flashback?" Jenny pressed.

"Three weeks ago," he responded, not meeting her eyes.

"That's great, Greg. They're getting further apart! And less severe from what you've told me the last few years," Jenny smiled.

"La de da. Now drop it, Jennifer," he said, turning away from her and going back into the house. Jenny rolled her eyes, stepping out into the rain and heading towards her car. She stopped when she saw Cuddy standing in the backyard, head turned towards the sky.

"Lisa? You're not trying to kill yourself with hypothermia or pneumonia, are you?" the blonde called, running across the grass towards the other female.

"No. I always thought that the rain was cleansing," Cuddy said, face still turned upwards. "I'm trying to get the feeling of that bastard's hands off of me." Jenny nodded, blinking water out of her eyes.

"Don't stay out here too long, Greg will get worried," she said, making to leave again.

"Jenny, does House have PTSD?" Cuddy called. Jenny turned to her.

"Why do you ask?" Cuddy blushed slightly, lowering her gaze to the muddy ground.

"Why? Um… I kind of heard you two talking about it on the porch," the brunette said, causing the psychiatrist to sigh and push her now soaked hair out of her eyes. "I've seen his medical records Jenny. I was his doctor when he had the infarction, and I've never seen any indication of him having a psychological issue. At least, nothing other than being anti-social," Cuddy rushed.

"Yes, he has posttraumatic stress disorder. It's not written in any of his charts because it isn't that relevant. And besides, I'm the one who diagnosed him. He begged me not to put it in… It doesn't affect his work and the only real influences on his personal life are exactly that. It makes him anti-social. Staying away from people is his self defence mechanism. He's dealing with it Lisa, you don't have to worry." Jenny explained.

"When did it start?" Cuddy whispered. Jenny just looked at the other woman. "It was after the infarction, wasn't it? It was all my –"

"NO. Lisa, listen to me very carefully. This has nothing to do with you. You wanted to respect Greg's choices. Stacy the wonder-bitch didn't. If anyone is to blame for his PTSD, it's her." Jenny interjected. Cuddy laughed slightly at Jenny's name for Stacy. "Honestly though, the groundwork for Greg's condition was set long before he even met you." Cuddy raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?"

"When Greg and I were kids, we ran into a bit of a problem one night…"

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They had just been sitting at the edge of the army camp when they were grabbed from behind. All that Greg heard was Jenny's scream before everything went dark. When he woke up it was night, a fire burning a few meters away. He struggled slightly, feeling the ropes tying his hands and legs together. He managed to roll onto his side, finding Jenny lying next to him, her eyes closed.

"Jen! Jen! Wake up!" Greg hissed, swinging his legs forwards and knocking his feet against hers. Jenny groaned, opening her eyes and almost instantly starting to panic. "Calm down! We need to be quiet!" Greg snapped. Jenny took a deep breath, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Where are we?" the girl asked.

"I don't know. Maybe a rebel camp? Jen… did any of the men… you know…" Greg muttered.

"No. I'm not in any pain down there, so no one's raped me," Jenny responded, trying to focus on their surroundings. The two sat in silence for a moment, the only sound disrupting the dark coming from the fire and the creatures of the night. Suddenly there was a scream from the darkness before a line of torches appeared from the forest. Loud chanting in a dialect neither child understood echoed in the night as the dark-skinned men ambled forwards; their faced covered by masks and their skin painted with war colours and dried white mud.

"Shit," Greg mumbled, seeing the few prisoners that the masked men were carrying. There were three women and two men, one of which was white, like them. Jenny whimpered, scooting herself closer to her friend as the chanting and the procession grew closer and closer to them. One of the men, was before the rest, brandishing a machete while screaming in tongues that Greg was almost positive were not of this world.

"He's the Shaman," Jenny hissed in his ear, making him jump slightly. "They… those people, they think that he can speak with the spirit world and that, um, he can tell them what their gods want them to do," she rambled.

"Why are you telling me this?" Greg asked her, trying to ignore the fact that the man screeching in tongues was only a few meters away from them now.

"Because… My dad said that most Shamans are just people with schizophrenia or some other thing that makes them crazy. They… they usually tell their followers that they have to make sacrifices to their gods and… and I think that we, along with those other people, are going to be their next victims," Jenny whimpered. Greg's eyes widened as his friend spoke.

"How the hell do we get ourselves into this kind of thing?!" he demanded angrily.

"Bad karma?" Jenny offered. The procession was around the fire by then, dropping their prisoners on the ground before beginning to dance around them, chanting and banging on drums. The women that had been brought there were huddled together, sobbing, while the two men were regarding each other with confusion and contempt at the same time. Suddenly the Shaman let out a call that sounded like a bird, pointing his machete at one of the women. The selected one screeched and sobbed as she was pulled up by her hair and thrown onto the ground in front of the Shaman.

He asked her something in a series of clicks from his tongue, but she didn't reply, just lay there crying and covering her eyes with her bound hands. The Shaman raised his machete into the air, a cry of agreement and excitement brought forth from his followers.

"Don't look," Greg said to Jenny. The blonde nodded, burying her face into his shoulder. Greg, on the other hand, kept his eyes on the Shaman, watching as he called into the darkness once more before bringing his machete down onto one of the woman's legs, slicing through the flesh but not enough to cut through the bone. The woman howled with pain, kicking at him with her other leg, but it just fuelled him on. He brought the knife down on her again, completely severing her leg from her body, before moving on to her other leg and repeating the process. Greg watched in horror as the man picked up the woman's severed legs, raising them above his head and dancing about the fire. The other men gave a cheer, making Greg want to vomit.

"What happened?" Jenny asked.

"He… he… he cut off her legs," Greg replied, voice cracking. Jenny let out a soft sob against the fabric of his shirt, not lifting her head. He glanced over towards the fire again, seeing the Shaman asking for the white man now. Greg swallowed hard when he recognized him. He was one of the men that his father worked with. A corporal, if he wasn't mistaken. The man was only twenty or so, not much older than the fifteen year old Greg and Jenny who were cowering together in a heap a few feet away from the slowly dying woman with no legs. Greg wanted to scream, to make them stop from hurting the corporal as he was being dragged over to where the Shaman was standing, but he couldn't form the words.

"We're going to die," Jenny cried into his shoulder.

"I… I don't know," Greg responded. He wanted to tell her that they were going to be alright, but at that moment, just as the Shaman let out another shriek and cut off one of the corporal's legs, he wasn't so sure that they were going to live though it. "Jen, you're the best friend a guy could ask for, thank you," he whispered to her.

"You're the best surrogate brother ever," Jenny said to him as he kissed the top of her head. "If I have to die tonight, I'm just glad that a friend like you is with me." As the Shaman took off the corporal's other leg, the mutilated man screaming in agony all the while, Greg looked on, horrified. The Shaman was about to perform his dance again when a gunshot sounded throughout the clearing, a bullet shooting through the flames of the fire and striking the Shaman in the chest. The other members of the tribe let out howls of fear, scattering out into the dense forest and leaving their other prisoners abandoned in the firelight. There was a loud barrage of gunfire then, screams echoing in the darkness. Greg rolled half on top of Jenny, trying to shield her from the bullets.

"It's gonna be okay," he told her, eyes squeezed shut. They could hear American voices screaming through the gunshots before there were pairs of strong hands pulled them from the ground. Jenny's eyes opened only to see her father ripping the ties at her wrists.

"Jennifer, are you alright?" Thomas was asking. Jenny nodded, sniffing. "Greg," he began.

"I'm fine Mr. Thorton… is… is the corporal alright?" Greg queried. He glanced back towards the fire seeing the legless man grabbing at the arm of the medic weakly. Jenny's father looked over at the other men.

"I'm not sure Greg," Thomas answered. Jenny looked up at her dad, tears still falling from her eyes. "Come on kids, let's get you back to camp. Your dad is off chasing those lunatics that did this, Greg, he'll meet us back at camp." Greg nodded, not really caring where his father was. As Jenny's dad led them into the forest Greg's eyes went back to the fire, seeing the severed legs lying by the fire, light flickering off the blood that was still dripping from the limbs. He shuddered.

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"Oh my God…" Cuddy whispered. They were sitting on the steps of the back porch by the time Jenny had finished telling her what had happened. "Why… why did he never tell me about that?"

"It's not something Greg likes to talk about… but it's also why he was so adamant about keeping his leg when he had the infarction. After seeing something like that, and then having the threat of losing his own leg, or even just a part of it, made the memories of so many years ago come back to him. Right after Stacy had you remove the muscle from his leg, Greg started to have flashbacks to the night we were captured," Jenny was explaining.

"Is… is that why he wouldn't talk to anyone but you and Wilson for the first few weeks after it happened?" Cuddy questioned, shivering slightly.

"I think so. He remembers I was there with him, so he knows I can remember what he sees every time he has a flashback. And Wilson… well, with Wilson it was more of a companionship thing. He felt that Wilson wasn't a threat to him, unlike Stacy. The fact that part of his muscle was removed… to him, it's just as bad as having his leg amputated. And make no mistake here Lisa, if my father and the other soldiers hadn't come when they did, Greg and I would have probably met the same fate as that woman and the corporal. It's that thought alone that makes Greg have problems with his leg. Stacy, in his mind, is the one that did that to him. She condemned him to having part of his leg taken away – to him, she's just as bad as the Shaman was. When he wakes up every morning and sees that missing piece of tissue it brings him back to that night and makes him think about losing his leg completely. It seems somewhat illogical to you and me, but that's how PTSD works," Jenny sighed. Cuddy nodded, rubbing her eyes. "When Stacy came back last year, Greg was trying to be around her not because he still loved her, but because he was trying to get over his condition."

"I can't believe that I never knew…" the brunette said. Jenny shrugged.

"He barely talks to me about it, Lisa, and I was there. You have no idea how hard it was for me to pry that conclusion about Stacy out of him. It took forever. Give him time, he may open up to you about it," she responded, standing up. "That's one of the reasons he's here though. He doesn't want you to meet the same fate he has with posttraumatic stress… you mean too much to him for that… You should go back inside and get dried off before you get sick. I best be getting home to my kids. My daughter Milana will probably bring your car around sometime tomorrow; she picked it up from the night club after she finished work last night."

"Wait, your daughter has my car? How'd she get in?"

"My husband works for the government… he kind of taught her how to pick locks and hotwire cars. Not the smartest thing for a teenager, but then again, it could come in handy. Goodnight Lisa." And with that Jenny stood up and walked back around the house towards her Lexus, her hair becoming soaked in water again within a few seconds. Cuddy exhaled loudly, struggling to her feet again before turning back towards the door and entering the house. Her body ached from where her bruises were, and her cheek throbbed from the stitches.

"I see you and Jenny had a nice chat," House said, limping into the kitchen with a towel in his arms. He instantly wrapped it around the shivering woman, gently shoving her towards the stairs. "Go get a warm bath and then dry off. The last thing I need is for you to get hypothermia." Cuddy looked up at House with a small smile, standing up on her tiptoes and giving him a gentle kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you," she whispered before going up the stairs. House just watched her go before flopping down on the couch. He was barely there for more than a few minutes before the lights went out and Cuddy screamed. He was up the stairs in a flash.

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A/N: Please review? Please? I'm desperate for things that make me happy right now. Pick a bribe if you like, I'll send you whatever! Ha-ha.