Firstly I own nothing to do with the Blacklist. Just a huge fan.
Sorry for writing another story. I got this idea while watching the movie Six Days Seven Nights, with Harrison Ford in it, and it sort of grew from there, but with Red and Liz. Not sure if anyone would like it, but if your interested in more, I'd love to know :)
Basically Red and Liz get stranded on an island, where Red and Liz will go all survivalist and naturally, feelings and tensions start to develop between them when Liz realizes how artful Red is at adapting to any given situation. I will try to update two times a week if I have the time hopefully.
There will be Somali pirates, mosquitoes, and other problems in the mix that will truly test them. So I hope you enjoy it as it unfolds :)
Stranded On An Island
There's a long peaceful silence that falls between them, as the car continues to move.
Liz's head remains leaning on Red's shoulder, her eyes closed tight. Surprisingly, she feels at ease. Comfortable, with her cheek and the side of her face resting against the soft fabric of Red's jacket, so much so that she starts to feel sleepy. She feels the car glide on and on, to whichever destination they are going to, and after a while, Liz forces her eyes open. Her eyes feel grainy and heavy as she pushes her head up and away from Red's shoulder, her eyes taking curious inventory of their surroundings.
She stifles a yawn as her eyes narrow at their surroundings through the tinted window.
They have arrived at a large stretch of runway, Reddington's own personal jet waiting for them. It truly sinks into Liz then that it is really happening; that she is really going off with Red, far, far away from the FBI.
A new life was waiting, where she was literally running away. Tom, her days as a profiler- it would all be left in the past now, all due to one action in killing the Attorney General of the United States. She turns to glance at Reddington nervously, not quite understanding. "We're taking your jet out of the States?" she asks softly.
Red nods once, his eyes on anywhere else but her. "Yes. I believed that would be safest of all."
Liz doesn't bother disagreeing with him; As Red unfastens his seat-belt and climbs out of the car, crossing over to her side, Liz quickly unfastens hers while letting him hold the door open for her. She appreciates his chivalry more than she probably should, then. She climbs out of the car carefully, inspecting the sky. It looks reasonably overcast and cloudy, and, for a second there, she almost doubts whether it is safe for them to be flying in such miserable weather. But she trusts Reddington, now more than ever. She decides she'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
The pilot greets them pleasantly, shaking their hands while Reddington tells her some mischievous cock-and-bull story about how on one flight, he had finally learned the meaning of the mile high club with the air hostess. Gripping the handles on each side of the small stairs tightly with her hands, she starts climbing up, her shoes plonking loudly on each plank. She begins to feel slightly anxious and uneasy when she reaches the rear door to enter the jet. There's always something about airplanes that she hasn't been very fond of, especially when the turbulence shakes the aircraft around. The possibility of a crash, unlikely as it may be.
She hears Red's footsteps close behind her as he climbs up the stairs as well and quickly, she pushes her anxiety aside and continues on forward to the spacious insides of the jet. Red is nothing if not a man that indulges in luxury and, naturally, the jet is every bit luxurious. From the reclining seats that are widely spaced apart for maximum comfort and leg room, to the windows that are wide enough that you could see everything while you flew high in the air. Considering the strange feeling that is overtaking Liz right now, this strange feeling of impending doom; she wasn't so sure looking out the windows while being airborne was a very good idea at that moment in time.
She hurries into the closest seat she finds, immediately strapping herself in. She focuses on breathing in-and-out of her nostrils deeply while she watches Reddington sit across from her, crossing his right leg over his left knee while removing his hat to place it on the hook near the seat. He appears unfairly calm and composed, which makes Liz feel envious. It isn't like she hasn't flown in a plane before, for goodness sake; She has done it many times, in fact, when her job required her to. She has been in Red's jet before, so why was she getting so antsy?
"You're looking a little green, Lizzie," she hears Red remark, and when she focuses her eyes onto his face more clearly, he's observing her, his head tilted slightly to the side. "There's no need to worry. I've known the pilot, Gregor, for years. He-"
"-I'm fine," she cuts him off dismissively, while her hands move to the vinyl armrests on each side of the seat.
Her fingers clamp down into the fabric in a death-grip. She wouldn't dare admit to Reddington how anxious she is suddenly feeling, how... determined that something bad was inevitably about to happen, once they took off and were up in the air.
She can only stare at Reddington with a slight lift to her eyebrows when he unstraps himself and, of all things, stands to change over to the seat directly beside her. As he sits and makes himself comfortable while strapping himself back in with the belt around his waist, Liz notices that his head is directly in the way of the window. The likelihood of her actually seeing outside is next to nil now. She finds herself breathing a little easier then.
"Not to worry," Red goes on, and she finds herself immediately irritated as all hell over his attempts to reassure her. She lets her eyes flit over to meet the side of his face; He's staring out of the window like a fearless man with no concerns in the world, gnawing the inside of his cheek. "Once its safe to remove our seat-belts, the cart will come in and we can have a few indulgent stiff drinks, Lizzie. Alcohol will undoubtedly take that edge off."
"I'm not afraid of flying," she says just below a whisper, pressing the rear of her head into the headrest. "I just... I have this... weird feeling that something bad is going to happen."
Red sighs loudly. "Well, it's been one hell of a day," he says wearily.
Hardly a minute later, the pilot is in the cockpit and he is turning the jet on, the engine making her seat vibrate. Liz closes her eyes again, breathing in and out of her mouth slowly, trying to keep her breathing calm and regular. Her body is still, stiff, and rigid in her seat. The adrenaline races through her body and she feels the dread build deep inside her as she brings her eyes open again when the pilot warns them through the speakers to remain in their seat-belts until they have successfully taken off.
This is the part she hates the most, whenever on a plane. The part where it takes off.
Her mouth goes dry when the plane starts moving, and she feels her stomach drop when the speed increases, faster and faster. A terrible thrill runs up and down her spine and she hardly feels it when Red's hand presses over hers from where hers sits gripping the armrest. He's trying to calm her down, relax her by giving her hand a squeeze, and Liz can't deny it certainly has a somewhat calming influence on her; Red's gesture.
Lifting her hand up over the arm rest, her palm face up, she lets Red intertwine his fingers through hers, giving her hand a tighter squeeze, and then that dreadful feeling returns again; That horrible feeling in her gut, like her insides have jumped around in her stomach while the jet has taken flight.
Then the seat-belt sign goes off and Liz lets a collective sigh of relief escape her lips as she moves into shaky action in unfastening her seat-belt, while Red does the same, his hand and fingers still tightly intertwined with hers. He only lets her hand go when, as promised, a blonde, thirty-something, female flight attendant with her bust hanging out of her uniform appears, dragging a cart along with her. Her smile brightens at Reddington when he graciously hops up from his seat to kiss her on both sides of her cheek and Liz feels a strange bitterness in her chest at the lack of attention Reddington is giving her now that another woman is in his presence.
The female attendant says something to him that Liz can't seem to hear- her ears feel as if they are popping- and Red's charming the pants off of her, obviously. A tray is sat between Liz's legs and then a glass of ice and yellow liquor that smells pungent is presented to her on it with a flourish, one of the many perks of being on a jet.
"What is this?" she asks Red, as finally the female flight attendant disappears off with her cart.
"Some strange concoction of both gin and vodka," Red informs her, sitting back down himself with a glass of his own in his hand. He swirls the ice and liquor around with a flick of his hand, eyeing the contents curiously before taking a sip. He cringes. "It tastes dreadful, but at least it'll take the nervous edge off," he says, mostly for her benefit.
"Right." Bracing herself, Liz purses her lips over the rim of the glass, squeezes her eyes shut, and gulps it all down in two mouthfuls. She almost chokes with how strong and bitter the taste is, but Red's right; It's better than nothing. It'll have to do.
Liz's almost knocked back in the seat forcefully, when a sudden lurch of the airplane makes it tremble and rock to the side suddenly. She feels herself tense up again as she watches the ice in her empty glass shake.
"What's going on?" she asks Red worriedly.
"I'm not sure. It's probably most likely turbulence. Gregor would tell me if its anything serious to worry about. We're fine, Lizzie."
Liz is anything but convinced when, suddenly, another unusual shake comes. "Still think its turbulence now, Reddington?" she asks him, and another jerk makes her glass slip from her fingers and smash against the floor by her seat loudly, ice spilling and melting over the floor. "God, surely it can't be just that."
Then the voice is broadcast around the plane again, from the pilot, Gregor. He sounds urgent. "Sorry about that, Mr Reddington and Miss Keen. We are just experiencing heavy winds at this hour of the day. It's nothing to worry about. Please make use of-"
The speakers cut off and startling Liz, the oxygen masks fall down from a compartment in the ceiling. The lights flicker off and then back on again from inside the plane with a funny buzzing noise. Another vicious tremble hits the aircraft and without even knowing why she's doing it, she glances over at Reddington for reassurance. What she sees there, does not reassure her in the slightest. Red looks disturbingly pale, a gleam of sweat beading across his forehead and around his receding hairline.
Though he doesn't look overly panicked, the corner of his lip twitches as he reaches over towards her, strapping Liz back in securely to the seat with his hands pulling it so tight, she can feel the buckle cutting into her stomach. Then he does the same to himself quickly, putting his dexterous fingers to good use. He reaches up, pulling Liz's oxygen mask towards her and she tries to suck in a deep, steadying breath before slipping it over her nose and mouth, the elastic band around her scalp pulling at the strands of her hair painfully. Since Red's head is no longer obstructing her vision of the window, she sees the wing of the plane rollicking back and forth.
They were dropping lower and lower, at hazardous speeds.
Then it happens. A strange smell of burning machinery emits from around the inside of the jet and there's a sudden bang, resembling a car backfiring, or a mild explosion.
Instinctively, Liz cinches her seat-belt tighter while she watches Red fearfully while he covers his nose and mouth with his very own oxygen mask as well. Her mask does its job in facilitating her breathing and she sucks in greedily through both her nose and mouth. Sickening vertiginous sensations. Red's eyes meet hers- she sees a frightening amount of wide apprehension in them- and its enough to make her go off the edge into complete hysterics. Now, she realizes, that she ought to have trusted her gut instinct. She had felt that something bad was impending on them, some intuition. And she was right.
The jet is going to crash. And there is a high likelihood of both her and Reddington not surviving this.
Quicker than a blink, a sensation of falling vertically hits Liz and she finds Reddington's hand, clinging it for dear life as if he's a superhero that can possibly save her from any of this and spare her a sudden death, as the sensation of them plunging down drives on and on. His dry hand and warm fingers return her squeeze just as firmly and she lets her eyes close, thinking, This is it. This is truly it. We're done for.
They are heading downwards for a small island. Straight for a group of trees.
Then they collided into them, and it feels like the worst wreck imaginable. There's another earsplitting banging noise, and the jet bounces and skids over, rolling on the side. She thanks Red internally then for his quick thinking, his pro-activeness despite the sudden emergency, and him taking immediate action by strapping her in; She feels her body wanting to fall, to go sideways. The tray on her lap flings off, disappearing. Then a sudden staggering pain comes when the hard plastic tray returns to hit her brutally, thwacking the bridge of her nose. Next thing she knows, she is conking out, her vision going black.
The first thing she hears when she comes to is heavy, labored breathing beside her. And waves. Water. An ocean. Waves lapping up and down. A shore. A stab of pain hits the side of her face and she winces, resisting the urge to reopen her eyes. Her nose feels all clogged and runny. Her face feels wet, incredibly tender. The ground beneath her is soft, grainy. Sand. She's on a beach, but why? And with whom? Was it a dream? Is she dead, with this being her own version of heaven?
Then reality slowly sinks in, when her head is being carefully lifted high by someone's hand. Folded cloth is slipped behind her skull and the breathing she hears from someone grows even louder and more uncontrolled.
"Lizzie?" Suddenly she hears Reddington's voice, coming from far away in the distance. She hears him sigh loudly and another stab of pain hits her brutally when she feels his fingers touching her, moving her fringe away from her face carefully. Her hair seems to want to stick to her, like her skin is made of adhesive. Why on earth is she so wet, so tender? "Lizzie, I need you to wake up."
Despite her bodies protests, she forces her eyes open, squinting at the bright sun that glares in her eyes. Her vision spots then clears, and then, there he is, Reddington, crouching over her. He scans her face anxiously with a relieved smile- though she is unsure why- and she feels a deep frown settle on her mouth when she spots the blood around his mouth, around the side of his forehead. He had removed his jacket somewhere along the line, his business shirt so blindingly white in the sun that it hurts her eyes. His sleeves are rolled up to his forearms and, as she focuses on them, even his arms and knuckles are scratched and bloody. He's hurt, and he's bleeding, yet he hardly seems concerned about his own state or well-being in the slightest.
Her mouth goes dry and she parts her lips, trying to form his name with them to speak it aloud, only her voice isn't cooperating with her. Tears gather in her eyes helplessly and she swallows against a heavy lump in her throat. Using her hands instead, she reaches up towards him, her arms stiff, extraordinarily heavy.
"How badly are you hurt, sweetheart?" he asks her, his voice so gentle that it makes her want to burst out crying. "Are you in any pain?"
"No, I... I'm just... sore," she gets out at last, her voice scratchy. "Nothing life-threatening, I don't think. What... what happened?"
Reddington leans back against the sand on the balls of his ankles, moving so that she can see what's behind him. She feels all the air abruptly leave her lungs. The jet, Reddington's personal jet, is hanging lopsided among a few trees that are just barely supporting its weight, half a meter in the air. The right wing has broken off completely. Smoke wafts from the cracked tail. It wasn't a nightmare. They had actually crashed, indeed.
"Oh, my God, Red," she whispers out uneasily. "The... the plane. We crashed. Red, where the hell are we?"
She watches Red's face through blurry eyes as he looks around them, his lips parted, showing his teeth in a hesitant grimace. Even for Reddington, that can't possibly be a very good sign. When he finally peers back down at her, the worry is there for her to hear, in his tone, "I'm not sure about our location just yet. We're surrounded by the sea and water. Palm trees. That is as far as I know, Lizzie."
"And the pilot, Gregor? That... the flight attendant?"
Red's voice is strained and uneven as he squints down at her, inspecting her body and her injuries as a way to avoid looking her directly in the eye. She sees the muscle of his cheek give off its twitch. "Dead. Gregor and Thalia are dead. There is no one else here but us, not that I can see." Reaching to her, he slips his hand under the middle of her back, getting to his knees. "Are you able to stand or would the pain become too excruciating?"
"I'm not sure. I won't know until I try."
"Then try." His hand is alarmingly warm, burning through the thin fabric of her shirt, as she lifts up with her legs under his straining, trembling support. He takes her hand in one of his that are wet with his own blood, slipping her arm over his shoulder so that she can lean on him and use his body as leverage to stand. She manages to stand, but there's a pain in her left ankle and her head still feels strangely wet. The nose area particularly. Her nose is tingling, throbbing dully.
The soft whimper of pain Reddington gives out tells her he is more hurt than he is letting on, that he is putting on a brave face for her. Clutching the fabric of his ruined Egyptian cotton shirt into a ball with her hand so she doesn't fall, she looks away from Red for a moment, using her upright position to her advantage to scrutinize their surroundings and to get a general feel of the current tribulations they were now dealing with. Ever since Reddington came into her life, Liz has learnt to deal with a lot of things; Her ex-husbands deception, catching dangerous criminals on a daily basis. Somehow all that training and experience has never prepared her for something like this. How are they meant to get out of this alive? What nifty tricks will Red have up his sleeves now? A new wave of panic comes crushing down on her and she shifts around carefully on each ankle, looking every which way.
Aside from the plane and the trees intersected around them, there's nothing else.
Palm trees. Sand and water that seems to stretch on endlessly for miles and miles.
Stranded. They were stranded on a beach island. Her and Reddington.
And so it begins. :) Please let me know what you think.