It starts with a voice shouting down the hallway. A nurse calling for surgical backup. "Female, early 20s, trauma code incoming—intern from diagnostics—"

He limps faster than his leg allows. And then he sees you. Your body is barely recognizable under the blood. There's a gash at your temple. One arm bent wrong. Oxygen mask tight over your face, hair stuck to your cheeks with sweat. His world tilts. His cane clatters to the ground. Someone tries to stop him at the trauma bay entrance—he shoves past them without a word. You’re not conscious. You’re still. And House doesn’t do still.

He stares. The team shouts vitals. A nurse tries to intubate. One of the trauma surgeons shoves in a central line. “BP’s dropping.” “Chest is tightening—we need to open—”

He can’t hear them. He’s locked on the smear of blood on your clavicle. The flutter of your pulse under paper-thin skin. His voice is hoarse. He doesn’t realize he's speaking until someone looks back. “...That’s her. That’s who was on the bus.”

Foreman’s behind him now. “House, you need to get out of the way.”

House doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. He grabs a pair of gloves from the tray, trembling hands missing the right finger holes. “House, let them work—” Foreman again. He doesn’t hear him. All he hears is you, gasping for air somewhere between worlds.

You were supposed to be untouchable. Brilliant. Annoying. The best intern he’d ever had. You sat across from him every day, and he told himself it was just about medicine. He was so full of shit.

And now you’re dying in front of him, and all he can think is: God, I never told her. Never told you how the way you lean over case files makes his heart beat wrong. Never told you how safe you made the world feel just by being in it. Never told you that it’s you. It’s always been you.

“Stay.” A whisper. Not meant for anyone but you. “You don’t get to leave me. You hear me?”

He finally steps back when your monitors shriek, when the surgical team screams for a crash cart. When Wilson yanks him by the shoulder, pulling him out of your bed. And for the first time in years—maybe ever—House prays.