Cuddy's eyes opened slowly, as if she were waking up from a particularly good nights sleep. There was darkness surrounding her and as her eyelids fluttered open she was just met with more darkness. Blinking furiously, she tried to see clearer.
She knew it wasn't her sight, she could see shadows from snippets of light from somewhere above. It was that she couldn't make out any shapes, or see anything clear. Wracking her brain, she tried to ascertain what happened.
She remembered... What did she remember? Hmm... Accident site. Quad ten. Person injured. Roof falling... It was then that Cuddy realised just where she was. She was trapped in the darkness under god knows how many tonnes of rubble, unable to move.
It was then that all her senses suddenly kicked in. Suddenly she could hear the deafening banging from above, she could feel the rubble chips landing on her head. She also realised that she couldn't move. Carefully, she tried to shift her arm, but not only did a sharp shooting pain go through it, she could only move it an inch before it got stuck again. She tried again with her legs. No pain, thank god, but still trapped.
A wave of nausea hit her just as a large shard of concrete fell of the low ceiling and onto her head. She could feel a monster headache brewing at the back of her skull, threatening to turn into something large and painful. Concussion? She thought so.
She opened her mouth to speak, and wasn't surprised to find it dry. The small area she was currently trapped in was small and full of collapse dust, something that was not conducive to a properly functioning voice box.
"He-h-hello?" She stammered, shaking her head the merest bit, but stopping with a groan when it killed. "Hello?" She mumbled, but slightly clearer. "Can anyone hear me?"
She could hear frantic, although muffled, shouting from above her, but it was evident that they couldn't hear her. There was drilling, and sawing, and shouting, and...was that House?
"Cuddy?" She heard through the jumble of other noises. "Cuddy? Can you hear me?"
"Yes," she croaked, voice heavy again. "Yes, I can hear you," she mumbled, her eyes growing heavy. Swirling black was slowly invading her peripheral vision. It was accompanied by a smear of red. Cuddy attempted to lift an arm to her - she assumed - bleeding forehead, but she couldn't. She was still stuck, and now she was bleeding.
Within seconds her eyes had filled with tears. No, she told herself firmly. No, you are not this person. You are good in a crisis... Scratch that, great in a crisis.
She wasn't going to be some other collapse victim, scared and helpless. She was a doctor, she knew what she was doing. "House!" She called, pleased at the volume. "House!"
"Cuddy?" She heard someone say with...relief? Then, she felt a small shower of gravel chips land on her, then a torch beam was shone through. "Cuddy?" House asked, peering into the small hole he'd made.
"Hi," she muttered weakly.
"You okay?" He asked, testing how far down she was by stretching his arm in. Too far to reach.
"Yeah," she said confidently.
"You're bleeding," he observed, shining the pinprick of light onto her forehead. "Quite a lot. Can you put pressure on it?"
Cuddy tried once more to move her arms. Nada. "I'm - "
"Stuck." He finished for her.
There was a moment of silence while House debated how to proceed. "I'm going to get the collapse team," he said gruffly, beginning to move his head away from the opening.
Cuddy panicked. "House!" She called out, fearful. "Don't leave," she begged, eyes shining. "Don't leave me."
Had she been higher up she would have seen the genuine anguish in his eyes. "Cuddy..." He reasoned. "You're buried up to your neck in rubble, your head is bleeding and god knows how many other injuries you have, and..." He peered in again, "I don't see any sign of the others."
Others? Then Cuddy remembered, the person who'd had her in there in the first place and the collapse team man. She glanced fearfully around the small space. No one. "Oh my god," she breathed. "They're buried underneath!"
"Appears so," House agreed, seeming unperturbed. "At least you're not," he elaborated truthfully.
"If we don't get them out soon, they'll have no chance," she told him in her 'I-am-your-boss-do-what-I-say' voice.
"So... I should go and get the collapse team?" He confirmed irritatingly.
"Don't play the fool," Cuddy snapped. "There are two men trapped here."
"And you," he pointed out. "You're trapped too."
"I can breathe," she alternated.
"I'll be back in a minute," House told her, his voice tailing off at the end as he left.
Cuddy eyes filled with tears again. She knew he had to go, to save those men, to save her. But still... She didn't want him to go.
She didn't want to be alone.
Focusing on her breathing to keep calm, Cuddy tried to think of things to take her mind of what was happening. Lucas, the wedding... No! Her brain shrieked, That will not calm you down.
At that moment, she thought about if Lucas was there... And she was glad he wasn't. Who she wanted was House. If she was going to be in a dire situation like this one she trusted House more than anyone to save her.
"Cuddy?" His soft voice floated down to her, shaking her out of her reverie.
"Yes?" She turned to look upward toward him, shaking a few of the tears that had been threatening to overspill loose.
"Here's the head of the collapse team," he told her, then stepped out the way so a young man could take his place.
"Dr Cuddy," the man shouted down. "My name is Ben Power. I'm going to get you out of there." He said all this slowly, enunciating each syllable as if he was talking to a child. She may be incased in broken wall and trapped three metres beneath the surface, but that didn't make her an idiot.
Cuddy frowned. "Good," she shouted up. "I have a contusion on my forehead but it just seems superficial and I am assuming that my shoulder is dislocated. I can't ascertain anything else at the present moment," she replied eloquently, hoping he'd the message.
She could hear House chuckle. "Stop being a smart ass Cuddy," he called down.
"Never," she called back, smiling. Even here, even now, they still had their banter.
"Right," Ben interrupted, clearing his throat, "we need to get you out as soon as possible, to avoid serious injury and have minimal loss of life."
"What do we do?" Cuddy said confidently, hoping that her voice wasn't shaking as she felt it was.
"We are going to try and remove some of this structure," he gestured to the make shift roof that was over her, "then we'll send someone down to get you out."
"Sounds like a plan," Cuddy murmured, glancing nervously at the roof. They were going to try and remove it... "Are you sure this is the only viable option?" She checked, visibly frightened.
"It'll be okay, Cuddy," House soothed.
"How do you know?" She challenged.
"Because I know everything," he said with finality. "Now let them focus on getting you out."
"Okay," she breathed, then repeated it louder, trusting House's words. She practically said them to Wilson last year: He's always cold, he's always an ass, but he's very rarely just wrong.
The drilling started, sparks flying down from the cuts they were making in the roof. There were scary cracks and bangs every second and Cuddy could feel her heart rate increase. What if it fell? What if... So many what ifs... The reality of where she was and what was happening hadn't fully sunk in.
She couldn't quite comprehend that in the space of fifteen minutes - or so, she didn't really have a clue how long it had been - she'd ended up in this position.
"Cuddy," House called, "stop obsessing."
She chuckled lightly to herself at his uncanny ability to know exactly what she was thinking. Call it his sixth sense.
"Okay," she promised, just as large chunk fell beside her, narrowly missing her head. She sucked in a breath.
"Oi!" House yelled, "we've got a person down there. Be careful."
His last words were drowned out by a huge crack from above. The drilling stopped, the shouting stopped, the chatter stopped. Everyone was intensely focused on that one crack... It was one of those moments that go by in slow motion.
Those first little chips take weeks to fall... And the large chunk that dislodges everything around you, making you slide into depths that you didn't even know where there... That bit, the biggest bit, takes months to fall.
And then you're screaming and crying as your body becomes free, twisting in ways that a body should never be twisted. Oh yeah, you're shoulder's dislocated. If it wasn't before, it was now. You're aware of House shouting your name. Of you shouting Help me! Help me!
But they can't. You're gone before anything can be done, into the deep black abyss that is the ground. And the last thing you hear is your name: Cuddy!
Shouted in despair, in anguish. In love, in hate... In everything in between.
And then there's nothing but silence.