A/N: Finally back with a new chapter! I finally got my new computer yesterday, so maybe I can update a little quicker. Like most of my stories, this one has taken on a life of its own, and I have very little idea where it's going. Any of your thoughts will be welcome!

New Jersey state trooper Josh Watson stood on top of the front door he just kicked in, his .45 aimed directly at the scene before him. Two men were tied to chairs, one had tipped over onto his back, with a crazed-looking man at least 6'5" standing over him brandishing a hammer. The other one was unconscious, maybe even dead. He took another step inside, his team behind him. "New Jersey state police," he repeated in his normal voice. "Drop your…hammer…and put your hands up!"

The maniacal kidnapper raised his hammer even higher. "Get out of my home!" He screamed. "You got no right to be here!"

"You mean other than the fact that you have hostages?" Watson quipped. "Put your hands up!"

"John, please just do what they say!" Alex came up behind the troopers, voice level, standing as bravely as she could with her arm in a sling strapped to her chest. "You've crossed a line now, hurt other people. Don't make these guys hurt you!"

When his eyes fell on his wounded stepdaughter, they flared with rage. "You!" he roared. "You brought them here, you little bitch! I'll kill you where you stand!" He launched himself at Alex, past the stunned cops, ready to drive the hammer into her skull. Alex closed her eyes, ready for the blow to land, when she heard the shot. Blood splattered on the front of her shirt, and she opened her eyes to see John's lifeless body fall at her feet. Watson still held his gun in firing position, but met the girl's eyes.

She didn't look away from his gaze. "You killed him," she stated simply, without a trace of accusation.

Watson actually winced. Abusive psycho or not, he had just killed this kid's sole family member right in front of her. "I-I'm sorry. I…he…he was going to kill you! You heard him say it!"

"I've heard it for a long time." She stood frozen, looking back down at the dead body at her feet before meeting the trooper's gaze again. "Don't apologize. I've wished for the guts to do it for years." Forcing herself not to tremble, she stepped around the body of her life-long tormenter and went over to check on her friends.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Alex sat alone in the empty room, where there should be two hospital beds, but instead there was only a hard plastic chair. This was the room both Chase and Wilson would be in when- or in Chase's case, IF- they got out of surgery. Wilson's case was mostly safe, inserting a metal rod into his splintered tibia to allow the bone to re-grow properly. Chase, on the other hand, well, that hurt to even think about. He had been badly beaten, burned with the heated end of the claw hammer, cut several times with a large knife, and was in really bad shape. Going from the ER, she had requested to join them in surgery. Then she demanded to join them in surgery. Then she calmly explained to them that trauma was her specialty, then she said that if he died in the OR, she would have the surgeon's license. Then House took her by her good arm and told her that Cuddy was on her way, and if Alex was still there when she arrived and causing trouble, she would be tied to a bed on the third floor before Chase was even opened.

So she went to the room to wait. She didn't want company, had calmly explained it to Cuddy when she came to check on her, and snapped it at Cameron when she insisted that Alex go get something to eat. And this was where House found her three hours later, knees to her chest, curled up in a chair, left sleeve of the huge State Police sweatshirt she was wearing hanging limp with her left arm still pinned to her chest beneath it. He had thought at first that she was asleep, as she didn't move, but when he got around in front of her, he saw her blue eyes were open, staring at the wall. He pulled up a second chair and tried to find the same spot she was staring at. "Chase is going to be okay," he said finally.

That got her attention, and she turned toward him. "You're not the type to be reassuring."

"I'm not," he said. "I'm giving a medical report."

She sat up straight. "You talked to the surgeons? How is he?"

He twirled his cane and tried to pretend he was simply discussing a clinic patient. "Like I said, he's going to be okay."

She rolled her eyes. "Meaning he's not now. I'm not a scared kid, I'm a doctor. A trauma specialist. I can take it, you know."

"No," he finally conceded. "He's not right now. He lost his spleen, a portion of his small intestines, and a kidney. They ended up giving him five units of blood. But he'll be okay. Good thing, too. I hate job interviews."

"Yeah," Alex added flatly. "Such a waste of time when you could be trying to beat Dungeon Siege on your PSP. How's Wilson?"

"He was still in prep. I thought I'd come and make sure you weren't having a meltdown or something."

"Because you hate job interviews?" She asked with a ghost of a smile.

"Of course," he said, as if it were obvious. "So, nice sweatshirt. Doing some moonlighting I don't know about?"

She looked down at the shirt, having honestly forgotten she was wearing it. "Trooper Watson gave it to me. He said I was shivering when I was trying to stabilize them. Plus, my other shirt was all bloody. It's still under this one, but I think he was afraid I was going to break if I had to keep looking at it."

"Are you going to? Break, I mean?"

She seemed to think about it. "No," she finally replied. "At least, I don't think so." She shifted, and adjusted the oversized shirt around her injured arm. She could feel the blood burning through the thin t-shirt under it and into her skin like acid. "I thought I might even be a little bit upset, him being the last of my family and all, but…" She shook her head. "Nope, nothing."

House looked at her curiously. He had lived through a much milder version of what she had been through, and he knew what he'd feel. "Nothing at all?"

She looked down, and it occurred to him that she was ashamed of what she really felt. Bloody hell! He was going to have to do all this emotional crap again! When Chase was conscious, he was going to give him some serious grief for abandoning him to this. "Don't look away," he said, gently enough to make himself queasy. "I think I know."

Alex gritted her teeth and finally met his eyes with an anger that suggested he was torturing her for information. Which, he guessed was a decent analogy, except what he was looking for was for her own good. He couldn't let her guilt eat her alive. 'Because she's a good doctor, and I hate job interviews' he reminded himself. Finally, she spoke. "I've always prided myself on being both strong enough to deal with everything and still being a good person. But I can't be a good person when all I feel about watching the man who helped raise me die is relief. So I guess I need to rethink my self-image, huh?"

Great. Emotional crap and psychology. This kept getting better and better. "Kid, do you know what righteous anger is?"

She rolled her eyes. "I was reading on a tenth grade level when I was six years old. Of course I know what it means!"

"I know you know the definition, could probably recite it word for word from the dictionary, but do you know what it means?" She had no answer for that, so he went on. "Righteous anger is what people use to justify if they had went off and beat your stepfather's body with his own hammer after he was shot. Because he seems to be inherently evil and after seeing what he did to Chase and Wilson, I don't think I could have kept from it. Hell, I've wanted to just from seeing what he did to you." He stopped and tried to reassess his train of thought. This wasn't going the way it sounded in his head. He was pretty sure the proper way to do this didn't involve giving her mental images of beating him to death with the hammer he used to break Wilson's leg. "What I'm trying to say is, you would be justified going out there and pissing on his corpse. And you're not. That in its self makes you a good person." He pushed himself to his feet. "Now I need to go get something to drink, preferably alcoholic. You look like you could use one too."

This was as close to an invitation as he would ever extend, but she shook her head. "Rain check, okay? I want to stay here until they're both awake. They went through all this to save me. I can't just run off."

She shifted again, uncomfortable, and House noticed that she was cradling her wounded arm again. "Time for another vicodin?" he asked, pulling out his bottle.

"No, thanks," she replied. "They gave me some Tylenol 3, with codeine and all. I took one an hour ago."

He pulled another bottle out of his other pocket. "You mean these?" She nodded. "You know," he went on, there is still one pharmacist here that doesn't hate me. He's actually willing to do me favors. Like, if I want a seal put on a prescription bottle so I can tell whether they've been opened or not."

Her eyes widened for a moment. "There's a seal on my bottle?"

House shook his head. "No. But you still gave yourself away. You don't have to punish yourself over this. There'd no reason for you to be in pain too." He opened the bottle and took out a large round pill. "Take the damn pill."

She held out her hand, and he dropped it into her hand. Once it was in her mouth, he nodded, satisfied. "Okay. Page me when you hear anything." He limped toward the door, and paused, like he wanted to say more.

She caught his hesitation, and knew he wasn't sure what to say. "Go," she said. "I'm fine!" He smiled a little. Kid after his own heart. He closed the door quietly behind him as he left. As soon as he was out of sight, she spit the pill in the trash. With what her friends were going through over her, the least she could do was suffer through a broken arm.