Author's Notes: Hello! Yes, as some of you have discerned, the plot for this story was borrowed from an episode of Criminal Minds. I apologize to all of you who have seen it, because this story is going to mirror it. I was really just looking to write a story that featured the House-Wilson-Chase dynamic without involving romance, and this was too perfect to pass up. So I'm sorry, and I hope that you enjoy this chapter!

Get Out Alive

Chapter 3
(Of Decisions)

It was late.

At least, that was Wilson's guess. He had no real idea what time it was, but he'd tried to keep a mental clock since the hatch had opened, revealing the night sky that indicated that he had been trapped down in this box for over eighteen hours. The cell phone, which Chase had smashed in his anger, had been kicked to the side and only a few of the plastic shards that had broken off remained in the center of the room. When Wilson went near them, he made a point to step on them.

House was fading in and out of consciousness with an occasional groan, and Chase was sitting next to him, dozing lightly. Wilson was pacing the room, trying to see a way out of this mess. He was alone in this battle—House was too sick to even raise his head, let alone brainstorm, and Chase... He was still a kid. How old was he? Twenty-five, twenty-six? A mere child, and Wilson wouldn't lay that on him. But this unfortunately meant that he was stuck with the responsibility of... choosing. Making the decision of who would walk out of here and who wouldn't.

"This is insane," Wilson muttered, turning sharply to retrace his steps. "Fucking insane."

The man had to be sick, twisted, like the serial killers from all of those CSI and Law & Order shows that he and House had watched. Laughed at, even. But no one was laughing now—this was real. There were no commercial breaks, no team of cops that was looking for them and interviewing people, finding leads and closing in on the killer.

"Hey Wilson," Chase suddenly said, blinking his eyes as he attempted to focus on the other man. Wilson's words must have woken him up. "In America, what do they do for missing people?"

Wilson paused to stare at him in surprise. He hadn't expected Chase to wake up anytime soon. "They..." He trailed off, thinking it over. "When a person has been missing for more than 24 hours, they start—"

"Wait," Chase said, his face quickly filling with despair. "They won't start looking for you until you've been gone for twenty-four hours? What the... Hell, we're going to be dead by then!"

"No, we're not," Wilson said immediately, and then he realized what his words had implied, but it was too late.

"So you've made the decision, then?" Chase demanded, his voice sharp with anger. "You're going to let House die? Since when was it up to you?"

"Do you want to decide?" Wilson asked, fury rising as he realized that Chase was blaming him. "Fine! Go ahead, Chase—who do you want to die, if not House? Me? Yourself?"

"None of us," Chase said stubbornly. He was in denial, he was distancing himself from the situation and forcing himself to think that there was still hope. Naivety was the answer.

"So what do you want to do, Chase? We're going to sit down here and starve if we don't make a decision soon!" Wilson wished abruptly that House wake up and play mediator, calm them down and work this through. House was the genius here. His mind worked in ways that Wilson could only imagine, and it would certainly be able to figure a way out of this... But House was delirious, certainly in no shape to think about outsmarting the twisted bastard that was holding them captive.

"We can think of something," Chase said, desperately trying to reason. "He obviously gets a kick out this, these psychological mind games, and maybe if we don't play along then he'll get tired of us and let us go."

"Or," Wilson countered, "maybe he'll get tired of us and shoot all three of us! And I have no intention of dying here!"

"Oh, so I do?" Chase asked. "You think that I don't want to get out here? And what about House? Are you going to let him die just because he had the misfortune to get sick? If he was coherent, I know that he wouldn't be volunteering to die—we can't go against that!"

"But he's not coherent!" Wilson shouted, words flying from his mouth. "If he doesn't get help soon, he's going to die anyway!"

What the hell? Anyways? Since when had he decided that House was the one that they were going to give up? That couldn't be—House was his friend! How the hell could he have just said that?

"That's crazy," Chase said, putting a hand on House's shoulder and glaring at Wilson. "I won't let you kill House."

Wilson closed his eyes and slumped against the wall, his head spinning and his stomach churning. What was he supposed to do?

The next morning, when House, Chase and Wilson did not show up for work, Cameron was not worried. She had told herself that the three were just out on another crazy escapade—though Chase had never been included in the House-Wilson friendship dynamic. That was all right. House had probably dragged him along by his ear, thinking that it would be fun to torment his duckling and go on vacation with his friend. Though Wilson had patients that were dying and needed his care. That was all right. He'd probably been swept away before he could properly call the hospital, and House had probably stolen his cell phone as a prank.

She told herself this. Not because she knew it was true, but because the alternative wasn't something she wanted to consider.

"We should get a case," Foreman said as turned a page of his newspaper.

"No," Cameron said, staring down at her cup of coffee. "There's only two of us—it would be next to impossible."

"We need to do something," Foreman said calmly, his voice purely analytical. "You didn't go looking for House last night, did you?"

"No," Cameron said again. "Why would I do that?"

Foreman said nothing, which was an answer in itself. Cameron took another sip of her coffee but got no pleasure from it. She was bored, she was filled with suppressed worry, and she needed to do something before she started going crazy. But doing something would mean acknowledging that... that... So she drank her coffee.

Wilson had given up thinking a while ago. He wasn't sure how long ago it had been because each second that passed felt as long as a life age, coming and going as long as an eon of eternity. His head was light and his thoughts were disconnected, and Wilson knew, with a clinical sort of detachment, that it was from the lack of food and water that he'd had for the past day or so. However long they'd been down here.

House had begun to shiver a while a ago and he was too wrapped up in his delirium to notice the situation around him, but the pain in his leg must have been mind-numbing because tears were pouring down his white face and he was rocking back forth slightly. Chase had been sitting with him for the last... A short while. He'd held House's hand and talked to him, reassuring him with a tone that would have fooled no one—except for House, who was teetering on the edge of reason with fever.

On some sick, logical level Wilson knew that it would the smartest thing to do. A sinister voice hissed that House wouldn't even know what was happening to him, he would be too sick to even be aware of his impending death. In fact, at this point in time, House would probably be too sick to recover even in the hospital... But it was so wrong. So twisted. So fucked up.

Wilson had entertained the idea of volunteering himself—but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He was the damn Head of Oncology! He had a mother and a father and two brothers, he had a dog and dozens of patients that were relying on him. His parents had already survived losing one child, and he couldn't… He just couldn't leave all that behind. What did Chase have? He had no friends, no family, and he was just a lowly fellow under House. His death would almost be insignificant.

Sighing, Wilson shut his eyes and tried to get a little bit of rest and prayed that sleep would give him a way out of this living hell.

Cameron had taken solace in her clinic duty. She'd left Foreman and his newspaper about forty-five minutes ago, tried to call House's cell phone to no avail, and then retreated down to the clinic to drown out her worries. She was working with a five-year-old boy with what appeared to have the beginnings of strep throat, when her explanation of a throat culture was interrupted by the door opening.

For a second, she expected to see House standing there, demanding to know why the hell she wasn't upstairs with Foreman, and did she think she was too good for diagnostics, and why was she wasting her time down here? But it was not House. It was Detective Morgan.

He stood in the doorway, looking no different than he had the previous night except that his missing eyebrows were even more prominent in the clinic light. This made him look conspicuous, but it did not change his friendly smile that was directed at her. Cameron gave him a nod, but her mind was busy trying to figure out why he was here.

"Hello, Detective Morgan," she said politely, giving him a warm smile for the benefit of the little boy and his mother. "What can I do for you?"

"I wondered if I could ask you a few questions when you're finished?" Detective Morgan asked, inclining his head towards the woman. "I don't mean to intrude."

"Of course. If you'll just wait outside, I'll be with you in a minute," Cameron said. She waited until the door was shut and Detective Morgan was safely on the other side before continuing her explanation, headed with an apology for the interruption. The woman cooperated, and soon there was a Petri dish down in the lab and a promise to the mother that she would receive a call in a few days about the results.

She opened the door and saw Detective Morgan making idle conversation with a man in the waiting room, while his fingers twirled a leaf that had obviously been torn from the fake plant a few feet from him. When he saw Cameron, he excused himself and came over to her.

"Is there some place more private where we could do this?" Detective Morgan asked as he approached. He discreetly dropped the leaf into the trash can, as if he didn't want Cameron to see the hospital property he'd destroyed.

Cameron signaled to the open exam room.

"It turns out that you were right," Detective Morgan said as he shut the door behind him. "Drs. House, Chase and Wilson are all missing."

"You're sure?" Cameron asked, taking a seat on the stool and bracing herself for bad news. "They haven't been to some hotel in Vegas or something?"

Detective Morgan shook his head, which shone in the light. "We located Dr. House's car at his house, Dr. Wilson's here at the hospital, and Dr. Chase's near his apartment. None of their credit cards show any recent activity."

"All right," Cameron said, even though it wasn't. "You don't have any leads, then?"

Detective Morgan shook his head. Then he removed a notebook from his pocket with a pen and pulled a more serious expression onto his face. "Dr. Chase's car was found vandalized. Did he ever mention having problems with someone?"

Cameron frowned. "No. But if he did, I don't think that Chase would tell me."

"Okay. How about Dr. House? Is there anyone out there who might want to hurt him?" Detective Morgan asked, noting something in his notebook while he spoke.

She bit down on a laugh. "House has a reputation for pissing people off. It makes him happy, I think. But he mostly just annoys people; he doesn't do anything more serious than a practical joke or something. I don't know who would have..."

With a nod, there were further notes taken down in the notebook. "Last year, he was shot by an unidentified male. Do you know of any way that these two events could be related?"

"Not really," Cameron said, wondering how she was supposed to answer this. "We never knew why he was shot. But—but why would he take all three if he only wanted House? That doesn't make any sense."

Detective Morgan shrugged. "Sometimes people do erratic things that make sense only to them. Now, how about Dr. Wilson? Any enemies?"

"I don't know," Cameron said uncomfortably, feeling almost guilty at her lack of knowledge. "I'm sorry... I wish I could tell you more, but none of them were ever open about their lives to me. I probably won't be able to answer half of these questions. You might try Dr. Cuddy, she'll know more—"

"That's all right," Detective Morgan interrupted with a slight smile. "I'll be getting to her later. It's just standard procedure—we need to examine everything in order to get your co-workers back."

"What are the odds of them..." Cameron trailed off, unsure of how to phrase her question. "The statistics. How likely is it that they're still alive?"

"In abductions?" Detective Morgan looked suddenly grim. "Only 65 survive the first hour."

Wilson woke up to pain. Not sharp pain, but a sort of dull pain that encompassed his entire body and made him quiver—but he quickly realized that he was not trembling from pain, but shivering from cold. His back hurt, most particularly, but as he came to he came to the conclusion that it was probably from laying on the hard concrete for so long.

"Oh, good," Chase said, relief evident in his voice. "You're awake."

Blearily, Wilson looked around the tiny room and saw that not much had changed since he'd gone to sleep. He almost asked Chase how long he'd been out, but then remembered that none of them really had a way to tell that. Instead, he asked how House was doing.

His response was a look from Chase.

"Did anything happen while I was asleep?" Wilson tried, hoping to elicit an answer this time.

"House peed his pants," Chase said dryly. Wilson suddenly noticed that House was wearing a different pair of pants, and was about to ask where they'd come from when he noticed that Chase was in his boxers.

"Aren't you cold?" Wilson blurted out, and he found himself on the receiving end of another look. All right. Stupid question. "Okay. Anything else?"

Chase shook his head. "Can you take over House for a while?"

"What's there to take over?" Wilson asked. All Chase had been doing was sitting next to him, and it wasn't like human contact would miraculously make House better—if anything, it just made it more likely that they would get sick too.

Looking frustrated, Chase exhaled and tipped his head back so that he was staring at the ceiling. "Just... sit with him. Talk to him. I want to get some sleep, but I hate to see him laying here alone. Please?" At his last word, Chase brought his eyes down so that they were staring directly into Wilson's.

"Sure," Wilson said finally, feeling a little guilty that he was giving Chase such a hard time. He crawled over to House and watched Chase as he stood, stretched, and then sat down where Wilson had been sleeping only moments ago. Chase seemed to fall asleep before his eyes closed.

Turning his attention towards House, Wilson ran his hand over House's forehead and tried to judge a temperature. It was probably 102 or 103, which was not good, but Wilson didn't trust his hand because it was freezing cold, and would judge any body warmth as being extremely hot. Wilson smoothed House's sweaty hair back from his face and took his head onto his lap.

House's eyes cracked open, revealing blue eyes that were bright with fever, and he stared up at Wilson.

"I... thn... m'sick," he said through chapped lips. His voice was gravelly and weak, but it was clear that he was lucid for the first time in hours.

"Yeah, you are, House," Wilson said gently, picking up House's hand and holding it. "You're really sick."

"Don'... need 'spital..." House whispered. "You c'n do i'..."

"You're not in the hospital," Wilson told him in a reassuring tone. "It's just me, you and Chase, buddy. You're going to be fine."

"Kay," House said, and that seemed to be enough for him. His eyes closed and his head lolled back, and in that instant Wilson knew that he could not choose House to die. It would have to be someone else.