A/N: I'm baaaaaaack. I survived finals and get to spend the next six weeks taking an english class with loads of work. It's an online course, so I'm hoping it's not going to be that bad. Posting will be a bit sporatic (maybe once a week...a little more) while I'm doing this class, but I'll post two chapters at a time, if I can (like I did tonight). Read and review - I love the criticism!

Ch 9 - This Time Around

Edward Vogler

I hadn't heard that name in over ten years.

That day in the boardroom, when we all voted to get rid of him, was one of the best days this hospital had ever seen. It may have cost us one hundred million in funding, but as far as I'm concerned - House had already repaid every penny of that loss. The diagnostics department had grown to include not only House's original team, but a group of twenty handpicked doctors - the best in each of the numerous fields of medicine. The hospital had grown in popularity and the diagnostics department alone prevailed - people from all over the world with serious illness came here in hopes that Dr. House and his team could cure them. It'd been a funding nightmare at first, but over the years grown far beyond any of our wildest expectations. We didn't need a penny of Vogler's money.

In the years following his dismissal from the hospital, we'd not heard much about him...which suited me just fine.

Which is why it was a giant shock, when James called me this afternoon. The Princeton Police Department had been to visit us late this morning - we'd all been pretty alarmed to hear the recent developments concerning Alexandra's kidnapping. I'd given House and his team the rest of the day off to go and make sure Allie was alright...how could I have not done so? I figured she would come home from school as usual - House and Allison would explain things to her and make sure she was safe - nothing more to it. I wasn't prepared to hear my goddaughter had been kidnapped once again, and this time by Vogler himself.

I left the hospital and headed directly to the House residence - House and Allison were going to need all the support that they could get. They'd already lived through every parent's worst nightmare...and now they were getting ready to live that nightmare once again.

My heart lodged in my throat as I drove the ten minutes up the highway to their house. I passed right underneath a large electronic billboard, now flashing the details of a newly issued Amber Alert.

Alexandra House

- 5ft9in

red hair/blue eyes

last seen heading north in black SUV -

It was hard to believe this was happening all over again.

I could see the flashing lights of the police cars before I even reached the gates that marked the entrance to their property. A short drive through the gates revealed thirteen police cars and their occupants milling about the entrance to their house. Inside the house, police gathered at a makeshift command center, formerly known as the dining room table. Wilson, Dr. Foreman and Dr. Chase sat quietly in the corner, talking to a police officer. In the living room Allison sat, red eyed, underneath House's arm. House was talking to a police officer, obscenities flying from his mouth every two seconds, looking rather pissed off that something like this could be happening to him yet again - only a million times worse, now knowing who was behind it all.

I went and sat down with Wilson and watched silently as a police officer approached House and Allison. The officer asked Allison if she had a recent photo of Alexandra, they'd need it to update the current one in her file.

Allison got up quietly and walked over to a desk drawer. She stumbled, and I grabbed her by the elbow for support. She opened the drawer and pulled out a box of photos. She flipped through and pulled out a photo of Alexandra, taken just last week. The smiling face of my goddaughter was true testimony to how great things had been going lately. She was sitting on House's desk, happy as can be.

Allison took one look at the photo and crumpled. She started yelling Alexandra's name as loud as she could - in a completely heartbreaking matter. House rushed over to her and tried to calm her down, but the breakdown ultimately won. Allison fell apart in the middle of her living room, with everybody watching. House took her to her room, and it was a good thirty minutes before he returned, telling us all that she'd fallen asleep.

He walked over to the couch and sat down, putting his head in his hands.

You didn't need to be a mind reader to know what was running through his head. It was the same thing we all were thinking, when we found out what had happened. We all knew what kind of a man Vogler was, what he was capable of doing.

She survived this the first time, and sprang back - we all knew this time around, she might not be so lucky.