Chapter 1

It was a baking hot summers day and House was stuck in traffic. He had decided to give his car a run out today as his leg was feeling particularly painful. It was only 10:30am and he'd already downed 4 vicodin. Now he was stuck in 90-degree heat going nowhere fast.

He tuned in the radio to try and catch the traffic update but all he got was Justin Timberlake blasting out at him. "Youth of today - no respect for music" he thought to himself "There are only 7 little notes and they still manage to put them in the wrong order". He quickly turned the radio back off and sat there wishing he had brought the bike to work that day.

Just then he started to hear sirens in the distance - lots of sirens. He assumed that there was some sort of accident up ahead hence the traffic. "Great - now I'm gonna have to pretend I'm not the world's greatest Doctor".

One hour earlier and 3 blocks from House's traffic jam ……

"I'm telling ya - this thing isn't safe." Sam had complained to his site manager about the scaffolding on the site for days. He was working on an old factory warehouse more or less in the centre of Princeton. The warehouse was destined to become swanky apartments for the up and coming young executives of the city - just the type of people who looked down on people like Sam.

Years ago Sam had dreamed about becoming one of those city types - he had fancied a career in law or in medicine or some other "respectable" profession. However getting his childhood sweetheart pregnant at the age of 17 had put all those ideas to bed. Sam had done the right thing - stuck by his girl, got married and supported her and their baby girl.

That was 10 years ago and Sam was now 29, his wife, Abby, was 27 and their not so little girl, Jess, was now 10. Sam and Abby had stayed together despite both of their families dooming their relationship from the very start.

Every now and again Sam could hear his father's words ringing in his head "You've got to get rid of it son - this is the biggest mistake of your short life. Are you even sure it's yours? I've heard lots of things said about that Abby ….." That was as far as Sam's father had gotten before Sam had knocked him to the floor. Sam never set foot in his father's house again after that day - his father had died 2 years later without ever meeting his granddaughter and without ever speaking to his only son ever again.

It had been the same with Abby's parents. They had been supportive enough in the beginning, even allowing Sam to move into their small 2-bedroom apartment to live with Abby. Then Jess had arrived and suddenly the apartment seemed even smaller. After one too many sleepless nights Abby's parents had thrown them out into the street and they were left to fend for themselves.

Sam had supported his little family from that day on. He had never pulled a huge wage but he was able to put food on the table and put a roof over their heads. They never really went without but they were more than sensible with money.

Sam had more or less fallen into the building trade. He turned up at a site one day without so much as a hard hat and got a job as an apprentice. Over the years he had built up his expertise and was now a rather good site foreman. He was fair to the staff he looked after and still pulled his weight. His crew had a healthy respect for the man who would join in with the hard work, keep everyone in line and still come out for a quick beer after the shift had finished.

The current job had been ongoing for 3 months now, had been plagued with problems and was massively behind schedule. The contractors were losing money hand over fist and something had to be done about it. That was where cost cutting began. Sam had noticed things weren't quite finished to the standard he was used to and the materials being used where chosen from the cheaper end of the market.

Sam's main concern at the moment was the scaffold that surrounded the outside of the building. A couple of his crew had mentioned their concerns about its safety and Sam had echoed this to his superior.

"Look Sam" his boss had said "the scaffold was put up by a professional firm who have done this type of thing a hundred times before. I just need you and your men to get on with the job - I don't need to remind you that we're behind schedule. Your men's jobs are on the line here. Either the owners start to see some progress with this job or they are gonna pull the plug real soon".

Many of the men at the site were in the same boat as Sam - families at home to support and little money coming in.

"OK, OK" Sam sighed "You can count on the lads to get things moving. I'm just saying I'm not happy about some things that I've seen lately. That scaffold is the most worrying thing. And we took delivery of the paint this morning - I have no idea where you got it from but I haven't seen anything like it in my life."

The paint had arrived that morning and was currently being stored below the scaffold. The delivery truck had turned up with one guy in it. The truck itself was unmarked and the delivery guy wore no uniform. Sam had had to pull some of his men to unload the paint - something that wasn't in the their job description. When Sam asked for the paperwork to accompany the paint there was none. "Another cost saving measure" Sam had thought to himself.

"Look, just get on with your job and leave me to worry about this stuff" and with that the site manger was gone, rubbing his hands over his face as he went.

Sam went back to the scaffold and started to climb. They were finishing off the renovations to the outside of the building - filling in the cracks, tidying up and replacing the windows. The shift had started at 7:30am and it was now 9:30am. So annoyed with the site mangers attitude, Sam decided to give his crew a quick 10-minute break.

"Come on guys, it's hotter than hell up here - lets grab a drink" Sam yelled up and down the scaffold which reached up to the 6th floor of the building. The 30-man crew started to make its way down the scaffold. Sam stayed at the back to make sure everyone came down.

Nearly everyone was at the bottom of the scaffold when it started to sway. At first Sam thought he was having some sort of vertigo attack, the world was literally swaying, but then he heard someone shout, "Come on - get down!!"

Panic threatened to take over his crew as the scaffold started to creak then groan. The swaying turned more violent and the whole rig seemed to lean to the right - heading straight for the street below.

For Sam everything went into slow motion. He remembered looking over the side to see how many of his men had made it to the bottom. He was relieved to see that most of them were down on the ground and were starting to run away from the building. One of his more senior workers had made it to the street and was directing people away from the building.

Sam knew what was going to happen next and all he could think of was Abby and Jess. He also thought of the families of the 6 or 7 men he still had on the rig. He had no thoughts for himself - he knew he was about to die.

15 minutes later and quite a distance away from House's traffic jam...

Dr Allison Cameron was starting her shift in the ER. She was the senior attending in the ER having left House's Diagnostic Department 6 months earlier.

Cameron had been surprised at how little she missed House and his gruffness. She found herself thinking back to when she had first taken her fellowship under Gregory House. Cameron had thought she was attracted to the older Doctor. She had hoped beyond all hope that he felt the same way and had even made him take her on a date before she had agreed to come back to work after the "Vogler affair" as she liked to call it.

It was after that "date" that Cameron had started to realise that House was never going to like her in the same way she liked him. No matter what she did, she just wasn't his type. "God knows what is his type," she thought to herself.

Nowadays, Cameron often cringed at the memories of her running around after House and making puppy dog eyes at him.

"Dr Cameron!" the sound of Nurse Hodges yelling her name brought Cameron back to the here and now. "Dr Cameron - you're needed for a telephone consult."

Cameron trotted to the ER's phone. "Dr Cameron" she answered, picking up the phone.

"Dr Cameron, this is Chief Jackson with the Princeton Fire Department. I'm at the old warehouse on Vine Street - we are looking at a major incident and I need some help real quick."

Cameron could tell from the tone of the Chief's voice that this was serious. She could also hear the cries of injured people in the background. "What are we looking at?" Cameron asked.

"We have had a major scaffold collapse - it's trapped a number of the building crew and the has spilt over into the street." the Chief replied "A number of passer-by's have been trapped and injured and we have three cars that have been crushed by falling debris. I would estimate having about 30 injured people and a number of persons unaccounted for under the main wreckage. I've never had this many casualties to deal with at the same time. I really need some guidance here."

Cameron could hear the tension in his voice "OK Chief - what I'm gonna do is get a team together and get down there to help out. Have you already got EMT's with you?"

"Yeah - we have about 4 crews down here but we really need a lot more. I'd be grateful if you could down here as soon as possible". The relief in the Chief's voice was clear.

"We're on our way" Cameron said and put the phone down.

At approximately the same time that House turned Justin off………

Cameron stepped out of the emergency 4x4 truck that PPTH had for such occasions. She had assembled a team of nurses and other Doctors from the ER to attend the accident. She had left a skeleton staff in place and told them to start expecting the first casualties. She had left instructions for all other emergencies to be re-routed to other ER's across Princeton.

As she had left PPTH she had bumped into Chase. Their relationship had grown quite serious during the summer and Cameron was glad.

"Please just be careful" Chase's Aussie accent was concerned "No heroics - I want you back here in one piece."

She had told him not to worry and that she would probably be one of the first back with the more serious casualties. Little had she known that she would actually be the last person to arrive back at the hospital that day.