It was Friday morning and House trudged through the front doors to PPTH, it was the end to a very long week. He had managed to make it through the whole week without killing any of his co-workers or getting any duty extensions from Cuddy. And somehow he had also managed to completely annoy all of the EMT staff without getting on Cuddy's last nerves. He had continually insulted the intelligence levels of the entire staff as well as causing other general forms of mayhem. But on the whole, his attempts to alienate and annoy every living human being near him were less ambitious than usual. For the first time in as long as he could remember, House was satisfied with his life. He had his job here at the hospital where he could continually harass Cuddy and he had finally succeeded in getting his team back together. He was pain and cane free and enjoying a completely fabulous relationship with Stacy. He couldn't think of anything that could make his life better at the moment.

Cuddy and Wilson stood at the far end of the lobby and watched as House slowly made his way to the elevators and headed down to the emergency section of the hospital. Wilson especially was surprised at the lack of sarcasm that House portrayed towards this particular form of punishment and Cuddy was actually beginning to think that he was enjoying this. If nothing else Cuddy had determined that she could always use House down in emergency if she was short staffed.

"He seems to be strangely pleased with life in general this week," commented Cuddy

"Yeah he does, it's a little bit odd I suppose, I've never known House to actually enjoy doing EMT work, but if he's in a good mood I'm not going to do anything to try and change that," replied Wilson.

Cuddy nodded, agreeing with him completely. House hadn't been in her office to bug her all week and she was actually enjoying the peace and quiet. So the two of them went back to work and all thoughts of House left their minds.

Late afternoon found House getting ready to head home for the evening. The day had been rather uneventful and House was hurriedly putting his equipment away so that he could leave for the evening. He and Stacy were supposed to be going out for dinner with one of her most recent clients and House was supposed to meet her at one of the fancy uptown restaurants in half an hour. If he left now he would just have enough time to rush home and change into something presentable before he had to meet her. Just as he was about to head up to the parking lot, Jason, one of the older EMT's poked his head into the equipment room.

"House lets go, we got a 911 call. Car accident we need you."

"Don't think so, I'm off for the week and I got a hot date, which I'm very close to being late for. See ya," he said as he began to brush past Jason.

"Sorry House, we need everyone we can get. You can call Stacy and let her know once we get on the road. Come on man lets go."

Grumbling, House allowed Jason to grab his arm and lead him towards the direction of the awaiting ambulance.

As he climbed in, House pulled out his cell phone and hastily dialed Stacy's number hoping that she wasn't already there waiting for him. It rang one before he got the annoying female voice telling him that the cellular customer he was trying to reach was not available. That's odd, thought House, Stacy always has her phone with her, and it's always on. He tried again a few more times but got the same results every time, so he gave up and resigned himself to getting yelled at later when he showed up late. The ambulance sped along, the radio blaring the initial reports of casualties from the accident. But House wasn't listening, he was wondering why Stacy's phone was turned off, it was the first time he ever remembered her not answering it. The ambulance came to an abrupt stop and House was jerked back to reality as the other medics began to climb out of the vehicle and rush towards the mess of flashing lights just up ahead.

"House come on get moving, we need your help over here," called Jason as he threw House a bag of supplies before grabbing his own and heading towards the accident site. House followed him, breaking in to a jog more because of the fact that he could than the fact that he should actually be in a hurry to get to the site. When he finally turned his attention to the crash site, he was taken aback by the mess of metal and debris lying haphazardly around. It looked as though a semi had crossed over the median and collided with several vehicles traveling in the opposite direction. People were being led away from the wreak with various degrees of cuts and bruises, and some were being carefully pulled out of their damaged vehicles by firemen and paramedics. Flames were coming out of the engine of the demolished semi and the largest area of activity seemed to be focused around getting the people cleared away from that area. No one was too concerned with fighting the flames, and House noticed for the first time that it was poring rain. That was when his eyes settled on the black explorer that was crumpled up against the front corner of the semi. It looked exactly like Stacy's, and house changed his direction slightly and began sprinting towards the vehicle praying that he was wrong. He dodged several people on his way and leapt over the hoods of a few vehicles to get to the remains of the explorer.

Reaching the drivers side, House noticed that there was still someone inside. He grasped the handle of the door and tried to pull it open, but it was stuck and he couldn't get it to budge. So he pressed his face up to the cracked glass and tried to see if he could identify who the person trapped inside was. It took him only a few moments to realize that it was Stacy, he couldn't really see her face, but he could clearly see the gold glint of her cross as it caught the light of the flames outside. Panicked now, House tried desperately to open the door once more. This time he was fueled by desperation and the door seemed to open with ease.

He was able to get a good look at Stacy now. And nothing that he saw helped to calm him or slow the rush of adrenaline that was coursing through his body. She had several gashes on her face and there was blood everywhere. The steering wheel was pressed deep into her abdomen and her legs weren't even visible through the crumpled metal. House nearly crumpled to the ground right there as he realized how bad the situation was, but then his instincts kicked in and he began to call out for help. No one answered and he was about to go and get some people to come help him when he heard a barely audible sound.

"Greg?" said the soft voice in a weak whisper.

House turned back to the car quickly

"Stacy," he called out, reaching for her bloodied hand that was dangling at her side.

"Greg, I'm glad you're here. How bad does it look?"

She was speaking in a tires whisper, as though she couldn't draw in enough air to talk any louder.

"It's not that bad," House lied, "We'll have you out of here in no time, just hang in there."

"You know that you're a crappy liar don't you? I'm so tired Greg."

"I know you're tired, but you have to stay awake for me until I get someone else over here to help ok?"

She tried to nod, but was only able to move her head slightly as she let out a sharp his of pain.

"Don't try to move, Stacy, I'll be back. I need to go get some help, just stay awake until I get back."

"Ok," came the weak reply

House quickly rushed out back towards the ambulances; he ran into Jason and quickly commandeered him into assisting him. Within minutes they had a small team together and were headed back towards the explorer and Stacy. Once they arrived back at the car, House tried to reassure Stacy and keep her calm while the others began to decide the best way to extract her from the vehicle. He was becoming increasingly concerned by how lethargic she was becoming and had to try very hard to keep the worry out of his voice. After a short while, Jason came over to House's shoulder and gently took him off to the side.

"House, I need to talk to you for a minute. We've come up with a plan to get her out, but you need to know that because of the way that she is trapped in the vehicle, if we do succeed in removing her there is a good chance that she will bleed out internally. We're going to do everything we can, but I think it would be best if you stood back and let us handle this."

House just starred at him in shock, he couldn't handle the idea that Stacy could die tonight. He tried to say that he wanted to help, to do everything he could to assure that Stacy had the best chance for survival possible, but the words stuck in his throat and all he could manage was a reluctant nod. Jason reached over and gave him a reasuring pat on the shoulder before turning back to the task ahead of him, leaving House to watch helplessly as strangers worked to save Stacy's life.

Another chapter done, yay for me. Well that's all for now, sorry about the cliffhanger, I will try to post again soon. Hope you enjoyed and reviews are greatly appreciated.