Hello everyone!

I feel a little bad... I haven't updated in two months, and this drabble is going to be quite sad. :/

It's set in Help Me, so not a particularly joyful episode to begin with. But I hope you'll enjoy it anyway... Thank you for your support and patience!

77. Take a deep breath.

Eager to lend a hand to the EMTs, Cuddy had helped pulling survivors out of the debris before getting them to triage. As she ventured a little farther out, she removed the smaller pieces of concrete that she could actually lift, hoping to catch a glimpse of a survivor's limb.

She didn't find any survivors, but she found a baby, still wrapped in a sheet that had covered the mattress of its pram. It couldn't have been more than six months old.

There was no doubt that it was dead.

Her doctor's reflexes took over and she gestured to the EMTs. Its mother couldn't be far.

Without thinking about it, she wrapped the baby in the sheet and lifted it and held it to her chest.

She thought of Rachel.

On auto-pilot, she walked until she found somewhere to sit – a couch next to a vending machine. It probably had been a waiting room of sorts until the crane collapsed and the building was reduced to dust in seconds. Part of the wall was still standing. It was enough to offer her some quiet and a semblance of privacy.

She sat with the baby laying on her lap.

She couldn't remember a time when she hadn't been able to handle a crisis. Even when she was a resident. The first time during her ER rotation, when there had been a sudden warning of a serious accident and a lot of patients coming in within seconds, her attending had just had time to warn them – you're going to see blood, injuries, don't let it impress you.

When the first gurney had been wheeled in and symptoms shouted by the EMTs, the other interns had gasped a little and taken a step back. Cuddy had gloved up and taken a step forward.

From then on, it had been smooth sailing. She hadn't been in the ER a lot after that, but when she was, her consciousness always took the backseat. The residents looked at her a little agape, like the cold-blooded goddess that she was. She didn't see the injuries, she saw how to fix them. She didn't see the already dead, she saw the still living.

What she had seen would come crashing down on her after, but she was a master of locking her emotions away and forgetting about them.

She looked at the baby and thought of her daughter. She thought of how hard it was to conceive. She thought of who this baby could have been before it had been snatched so cruelly from life.

She hoped the mother hadn't survived to find out her child had died and quickly disposed of that thought.

She was furious and heartbroken over how unfair life was.

She had her face in her hands, looking at the baby between her fingers. She felt tears burn her eyes and her fingers curled and her nails dug into her skin.

Her neck and ears felt cool because of a ponytail she wasn't used to. She didn't see her hair in her peripheral vision and felt like a horse that had lost its blinders. She hated how heavy and rough her blue overall felt. She felt like she wasn't who she was and she shouldn't even be here.

She felt the couch dip beside her and she knew it was House. Had she heard the cane? Had she smelled him? Had she recognized him from the way the couch dipped when he sat, because he had been sitting beside her for so many years now – she should know?

She heard the ugliest sob, and didn't immediately realise it had escaped from her mouth. Suddenly she was looking away from the baby and into House's leather jacket, as he wrapped his arms around her and cradled her head with his palm.

She felt his warmth and smelled him – instead of dust and smoke and death. He was the only one she wanted comfort from at that moment. The only one who could breathe life into her and pull her away from death.

He was the only one who'd understand.

She cried briefly and loudly.

Life was unfair and short – worse than that, it was fragile. You could die at any second. Without a warning.

What if she died before she could tell him she loved him? Before she could give House and her a try?

"Take a deep breath," he told her quietly, and she tried to. Her sobs caught in her throat, but she eventually calmed down. "Let's get you home."

"I can't," she protested, albeit weakly against the leather of his jacket. "I have to be here."

"You're not gonna help anyone in this state."

He was right.

They took the baby to triage and he took her back to his place.