Author's Notes: Hello everyone! This chapter is going to be explosive, just as a forewarning, and it's also going to flip around a lot. For those of you who have already seen the Criminal Minds episode, I apologize... And to everyone who hasn't, I apologize as well. Just know that I didn't have any intention of writing it so that it so closely mirrored the Criminal Minds plot, it was just the way it unfolded. Blame it on the characters. So, um, enjoy!

Get Out Alive

Chapter 5
(Of Death)

Wilson stared at the two axes, feeling as if he were about to faint. There was no way... no way... he could ever... Abruptly, he felt sharp bile rise up in his throat, and he choked as he tried not to throw up. The walls of the cell began to flicker and spin radically, and Wilson distantly realized that he had fallen to his knees and was supporting himself with one hand against the wall. It didn't matter. All that he could see was the two axes laying there on the floor, like dynamite, and he could not think.

He had been sure. The decision had been made—he and Chase would go free and House would be killed. Wilson had pictured a gunshot to the head. He'd thought that the man who'd taken them would do it. But never this.

Wilson couldn't do this.

He couldn't axe his best friend to death.

"Wilson?"

Wilson jumped as Chase spoke, and some of the dizziness receded. He lifted his head slowly to look at Chase, feeling as if he were staring down a long tunnel, and tried to focus he thoughts. Speech was impossible as he thought that he might vomit still, so he nodded instead.

"Does he want us to—?" Chase stopped speaking as he stared at the two axes on the floor. "To..."

Wilson stared at him, fighting the urge to scream. Did he really need it spelled out for him? He was a doctor, why the hell did he need reassurances and explanations? It was as clear as day what he wanted them to do—how much more obvious could he want it? Short of him opening the hatch and shouting down that if they wanted House dead they'd have to do it themselves, Wilson thought it was pretty damn clear. But Chase was too scared, too damn afraid to just accept it. He wanted him to say it.

Well too bad.

If Chase was too weak to accept it, it was his fucking problem.

Cameron was sitting in the conference room. Her clinic duty was finished, and she was now counting down the minutes until noon, when she'd been promised an update from the police. Presently, though, it was only ten o'clock. She had two hours to wait. Foreman was now doing his own clinic hours, leaving Cameron to sit alone in the darkness and spare House's office a glance occasionally. She was tempted to go in there and search for something, anything that might lend credence to her theory that he'd run off to Vegas, but knew that it was ridiculous. It was just denial.

But still, she stared at his office. She wondered where he was, what he was doing right now. His leg must be killing him by now, and even if Wilson and Chase were there with him, there wouldn't be anything they could do to ease his pain. Was he afraid? Was his mouth running, getting him in trouble with whoever had taken him? A picture of House, lying in the back of some van with his eyes shut tightly filled her mind, and Cameron felt tears rise up again. Hadn't House been through enough?

Blinking to clear her vision, Cameron abruptly noticed that the phone inside of House's office was ringing. Her mind was blank for a full three seconds as she stared at it, and then she realized that she should probably answer it. Leaping out of her seat and running into House's office, she grabbed the phone just as the answering machine was picking up and brought it to her ear.

"Hello?" she said breathlessly, using one hand to steady herself against House's desk.

"Greg? Is that you?" a woman's voice asked, sounding extremely surprised.

Cameron frowned, wondering who could possibly be on the phone that referred to House as 'Greg'... Stacy, maybe? "No," she said finally. "This is Allison Cameron—can I help you?"

"Oh, Allison!" the woman exclaimed, sounding embarrassed. "Forgive me, I didn't recognize you at all. This is Blythe House. I received a strange message from Dr. Lisa Cuddy, but she didn't leave a number, so I thought that I'd call Greg. Is he there?"

Cameron's mouth opened in surprise as she realized that Cuddy had called, but hadn't been able to reach House's parents. Which meant that it was now her duty to tell them the awful news.

"Mrs. House, I'm so sorry," she said. "House—Greg has gone missing. He hasn't been seen since yesterday morning. The police are investigating his disappearance along with the disappearance of two other doctors."

There was a long silence, and Cameron bit her lip nervously.

"Mrs. House?" she finally asked, her voice trembling a little.

"I—I'm sorry," Blythe said at last. "Are you... Are you sure?"

Cameron forced down a sigh. "Yes," she said, despite the fact that she was still unwilling to believe it herself.

There was another long silence, and Cameron could hear Blythe breathing into the receiver in ragged breaths.

"Mrs. House, I'm so sorry," she said, her throat tightening as she heard the mother's distress, even over the phone. She couldn't even imagine what Blythe must have been thinking, imagining about her son's welfare. "I don't know what else to say."

"What do I do?" Blythe asked in a small voice, sounding almost afraid to hear the answer. "How do I do this, Allison?"

"I don't know," Cameron sighed, wishing that there would be some concrete answer out there that she could give. "I don't know Mrs. House."

Facing another long stretch of hunger, Chase was curled up in a ball as he tried to sleep. Hunger came in waves—sometimes, it was just gnawing at the pit of his stomach, and other times, like right now, it felt as if his stomach had turned on itself and had began gnawing on his kidneys. Sharp, shooting pains like he'd swallowed glass made him cringe and pray that it would be over. His throat was dry and screaming for a drink of anything, and most of all, he was cold.

The hunger was almost bearable when he compared it to the cold. He would have taken the hunger over the cold, because at least that fluctuated and gave him a break. The cold was enveloping and though it was worse on the side that he was laying on, penetrated his entire body and made him shiver. He was regretting his decision to donate his pants to House, and considered putting on the soiled pants before the stench nearly made him heave.

Distantly, Chase could hear House. He'd been awake for a while, sitting up and shivering with his eyes wide open, staring at something that no one else could see. He wondered if House realized that a while ago, he and Wilson had thought that they were going to be free. Chase wondered if House heard their arguing and if he could see the two axes that were still laying untouched on the floor.

The human body could go for three days without food or water. But how long had it been? Was the third day nearing, or had only a couple hours passed? He could be laying here at the end of his rope, breaking into the third day of captivity, and he would be dead soon. He couldn't die. He had to do something.

Suddenly, the two axes on the floor caught his eye, and a plan began to form in his mind. He had no idea... Would it work? There wasn't enough time, he didn't have enough energy... but that didn't matter. He had to try.

It was noon. The time of the promised update.

Cuddy tried not to stare at the clock and forced herself to continue typing a letter to the Dean of Medicine at Johns Hopkins. Cameron was sitting quietly in the chair on the other side of her office, bent over with her face in her hands, waiting for Detective Morgan just as Cuddy was. Apparently Mrs. House had called House's office and had told Cameron that she and her husband would be there as soon as they could. Cuddy also noticed that Cameron's face was freshly scrubbed and that her eyeliner was suspiciously missing, but she made no comment.

Again, she focused on her computer screen and started typing, but the words felt hollow. Incomplete. Her eyes began to re-read lines and she found herself wondering if she'd used the right tense here, or if perhaps 'paltry' was too strong an adjective, and Cuddy sighed in frustration.

"Can't concentrate?" Cameron suddenly asked, startling Cuddy.

Cuddy stared at her in surprise for a moment, debating how to answer, and she finally decided that honesty was the best policy in this situation. "No," she admitted with a sigh.

"I know," Cameron said, lifting her head look at Cuddy. She offered a tired smile. "You keep tapping one foot against the desk—House does it too."

Cuddy blinked in surprise and stopped tapping her foot, but said nothing.

Cameron seemed to take the silence as Cuddy being offended or uncomfortable, because the next words out of her mouth were an embarrassed apology. "People watching is something you pick up with House," she added.

Cuddy nodded. "I know," she said reassuringly. She opened her mouth to say something when the doors to her office suddenly opened, and Detective Morgan walked in.

"Detective Morgan!" Cameron said, jumping out of her chair. She nearly ran over to him, but seemed to restrain herself and then rerouted herself to Cuddy's desk, where she stood and clasped her hands together anxiously.

"Hello," Detective Morgan said, a smile directed at the both of them. "I have news."

"Did you see anything on the security cameras?" Cuddy asked before she could stop herself.

"No," Detective Morgan said, shaking his head slightly. "But we were running over the parking lot and we found two bullet casings. This means that we'll be able to figure out what kind of gun he used. If it's a rarer model, we might even be able to get a list of people who own those guns and figure out if any of them possess a dark van."

"That's if he's registered the gun," Cuddy pointed out, her mind shooting down this possible lead before it could even spark a flare of hope inside of her. "Or if he wasn't using a stolen van."

Detective Morgan seemed slightly deflated, as if he'd hoped that she wouldn't have found these holes, but he blinked and nodded. "Yes, that's right. But we've gotten lucky right now, and it's better than having nothing at all." He gave her a sharp look. "It's best to keep optimistic during times like this."

Cuddy glanced down to her desk, hearing the implied admonishment, but she didn't linger upon it. "Of course," she agreed, meeting Detective Morgan's eyes. "Thank you."

Detective Morgan nodded. "I'm going to go oversee the forensics lab, but I'm leaving six men here—if you have any problems, please call me." He turned to leave.

"You'll call us?" Cameron asked out of the blue. Detective Morgan turned around with a frown on his face, and Cameron quickly elaborated. "If you find anything, you'll call us? Right?"

"Absolutely," Detective Morgan said. This time, when he turned around and started walking out, he was not stopped. He left and carefully made sure that the door shut behind him, and then disappeared from sight.

Cameron exhaled loudly, and Cuddy saw a hint of a smile come across her face. "They'll find them," Cameron said certainly.

Cuddy wished that she could share in that certainty.

Wilson had his eyes closed, trying to shut out House's mutterings. He wanted to sleep—he wanted to forget everything that was around him and escape, if only for a few hours. His mind's eye was displaying a slightly exaggerated picture of the two axes, making them larger and more sinister-looking so that he was forced to open his eyes to remind himself that the axes did not look like that.

However, there was only one axe before him.

For one wild moment, Wilson pictured Chase standing behind him, ready to swing the axe and kill him in a single stroke—but then he remembered that it was Chase that he was thinking about. The pacifist. The one in denial. The one who was...

Holding an axe?

"What are you doing?" Wilson asked, pushing himself up on his elbow, ignoring the scraping of skin on concrete as he stared Chase.

"We've got to do something," Chase muttered, sounding half-crazed. He was standing up with the axe in one hand and a resigned expression on his face.

"What are you doing?" Wilson repeated, enunciating more clearly this time.

Chase stared at him, and then hefted the axe. "We could escape," he said, and then looked up to Wilson as if daring him to challenge this idea.

Wilson snorted. "And how do you plan on doing that? Going to hack your way through the concrete?"

Chase's expression became stubborn. "I'm going to try. I haven't resigned myself to death yet, thanks, so it's worth a shot."

"Look, Chase," Wilson said thinly, "as much as we resemble Nick Cage and Sean Connery, this isn't The Rock. No miracles—we're stuck here." He was half-astounded and half-amused that Chase would honestly believe that he could axe his way through concrete walls.

"Shut up," Chase said. "If you're so sure that we're doomed, go ahead and kill House with the other axe! Go on!" He waved his free hand around wildly, and Wilson could hear his erratic breathing from where he lay.

"It's not going to work," Wilson said, losing patience. "There's only one way out of this, and you have to accept that."

Cuddy managed to finish her letter to the Dean of Medicine at Johns Hopkins, and printed it out. Reading it over, she felt useless. Three of her doctors could be out there, dying, and she was concerning herself with trivial matters such as grammar? Where was the sense in that? She should be out there doing something, contributing in some way. But she was Dean of Medicine, and couldn't abandon her job at the drop of a hat.

Thus somewhat contented, Cuddy read through the letter again and was surprised to find that three of the sentences made no sense whatsoever. As she sat down to edit the letter, she supposed that it shouldn't have been so unexpected.

"Dr. Cuddy?"

Cuddy looked up and saw an older woman with grey-streaked hair standing next to a large, pot-bellied man with fine, silvery hair. They were holding hands and stood in the entrance to her office nervously.

"Mr. and Mrs. Wilson?"

"Oh, so you've accepted it?" Chase accused, dropping the axe onto the floor with a loud clatter, but he didn't seem to care. "You've decided that it's all right to kill someone else to save your own skin?"

"Maybe," Wilson said, standing up as he felt suddenly energized with anger. "What's more valuable to you? You have to stop deluding yourself and face the facts, Chase! Someone here is going to die!"

"It doesn't have to be that way," Chase insisted. "If we work together—"

"Oh, bullshit!" Wilson shouted throwing his arms up in the air. "This isn't a fucking movie—there's not going to be a happy ending! Get your head out of your ass, Chase!"

"Then you kill yourself!" Chase yelled, kicking the dropped axe at Wilson. "If you're so fixed on it, go ahead and kill yourself! But you wouldn't be so certain if it was your life we were talking about, would you?"

Cuddy offered them a seat on her couch and then sat down across from them, noticing the stubborn expressions on their faces. She folded her hands together and remembered that both of them still believed that House was at fault. A stolen glance at the clock revealed that Detective Morgan had only left forty-five minutes ago. It was unlikely that she'd get any phone calls from him so soon.

"Mr. and Mrs. Wilson," she began slowly, "I'm so sorry. It's certain now that your son, James, has been kidnapped."

Abigail sat there and said nothing, but Chayim spluttered indignantly.

"How could they possibly know that?" he demanded, his hand gripping his wife's very hard. "Do they have a ransom note? A body?"

Cuddy shook her head mournfully. "No," she told him. "They found an eye witness who saw him and the two other doctors being forced into the back of a van. By a man with a gun. The police found bullet casings in the parking lot."

Chayim opened his mouth, but then slowly shut it and looked over to his wife for support.

Wilson's jaw dropped. "Kill myself? What the hell, Chase? Can't you see that I'm not the one who should die? House is dead whether he gets out of here or not—the fever's too far gone!"

"You don't know that! How could you know that?" Chase asked wildly, his eyes darting from House to Wilson.

"Maybe it's because I'm a doctor?" Wilson pointed out nastily. "Because I have the common sense to realize that it's better him than me? Don't you understand that? It's practical!"

"Killing isn't practical!" Chase roared, his words echoing off the concrete walls. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"He has to die, Chase!" Wilson shouted. "Don't you get it? Don't you fucking get it? House is going to die!"

Chase's mouth opened and began spewing out words, but the sounds never reached Wilson's ears. Everything was muted for an eternity, just for a second, and then there was an explosion of pain in the back of Wilson's head. He saw a flash of blinding white light that sent a violent shiver of nausea down to his stomach, and then there was darkness.

There was nothing but darkness.

Cuddy tried her best to look confident as she looked at the couple. "Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, I'm sure that your son is fine and will return to us soon. The police are using all of their resources to find them right now, and they've promised to call when they find something."

Abigail nodded, and Chayim spoke with a hard edge to his voice. "Of course they'll find him." He squeezed his wife's hand. "We have faith in James."

Chase saw Wilson's whole head jerk, and his eyes glazed over. Frozen, he watched Wilson's body crumple to the ground and reveal a stunned House, who was standing behind him. He held a bloody axe in one hand, still suspended in the air and dripping blood down to the floor, and his ashen face was splattered with droplets of red. Neither one of them of them moved, seeming to be stopped in time as the realization of what House had done sunk in. He'd overcome the pain in his leg and his sickness. He'd saved himself. He'd saved Chase.

House had killed Wilson.