Season 8.5 Episode 1: "Gathering Stories" by ebonybeach and shli

We are fragile creatures. Easily broken, easily hurt – physically and emotionally. A thin piece of paper can pierce our skin and draw blood. A whispered farewell can break our heart and cause grief. We truly are not built to survive. Yet, we do. Somehow, despite our inherent frailty, we live when we should die and endure when we should fall apart.

Owen stared at the phone on the conference room table, trying to process the voicemail he had listened to a minute ago while waiting to be connected to an operator at Seattle Airlines. What the hell happened?The rational part of his brain – the part trained by the US military in ground operations and basic aviation, in logistics and managing catastrophes – was not yet panicking. Major Hunt knew that there could be a simple explanation: one of his staff might have booked the wrong flight or the plane could have been delayed before takeoff. This part of him was busy plotting a course of action: deciding on the first and subsequent steps, assessing all possible outcomes at every stage, and making contingency plans.

But Cristina's husband was not so calm. His mind was racing, his heart rate skyrocketing while the rest of his body seemed frozen solid, leaving him unable to move a single muscle. The thought of what might have happened to six of his best surgeons – to his friends, to his wife– was a punch to the gut. He couldn't help but think about the plane crash nearly a year ago now. The crash had a sole survivor – a little girl whose whole world turned upside down in an instant.

That was the day his world turned upside down, too. That was the day Cristina gave him everything he wanted and then took it away again without even asking. He had been lost for so long after all that had happened between them, but right now the thought of losing her – of literally losing her, and not just to another hospital across the country – was so horrendous he felt like he was going to throw up. If anything happens to her...Well, he would never forgive himself. For letting her get on the flight, for not fighting harder for their relationship. For giving her an excuse to leave him in the first place and for not telling her he loved her every single day.

The click of the telephone line as his call finally connected startled him back to reality, and a voice filled the air over the pounding of blood in his ears. "Good evening, Seattle Airlines, Jenna speaking. How can I help you?"

Owen's hands tightened around the arms of his chair as he desperately tried to anchor himself in the present.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

"Yes, hello." He cleared his throat, willing his voice not to sound as shaky as he felt. "I'm calling about a flight. I can't remember the number but it left from Sea-Tac at 1:35 PM. A private plane carrying six of surgeons to pick up two patients from—"

He didn't get to finish his sentence as Jenna cut him off with a gasp that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "I'll just transfer you to head office, Sir," she said far too quickly, and then he was on hold again. Only it felt like his whole life was on hold, too.

The connection was much faster this time. "Hello, this is David Leitch, CEO of Seattle Airlines. Who am I speaking to, please?"

The fact that the head of the company was in the office at this hour did nothing to quell Owen's anxiety, but he took a deep breath and willed himself to be professional. "Hello, I'm Dr. Owen Hunt, Chief of Surgery at Seattle Grace Hospital. Six of my staff took a flight with you this afternoon and they have yet to arrive at their destination. Can you tell me what's happened?"

His voice sounded impatient and raw to his own ears, and there was a pause which felt like an eternity.

"Yes, Dr. Hunt. I am so sorry to inform you, but the plane seems to have fallen off the radar somewhere over Wallowa National Forest in north east Oregon. We lost contact around fifteen hundred hours."

And just like that, the whole world came crashing down. Owen couldn't speak. He just listened numbly as the voice from the phone continued to talk.

"We received no distress calls from the pilot or crew before we lost them. We have been coordinating with search and rescue, who sent out ground crews and two helicopters this afternoon; but the search was called off when it got dark and it will resume again at sunrise. Dr. Hunt, please rest assured that our pilots are exceptionally skilled and it may well be that they landed relatively safely."

Yet from the white hot fear inside of him, Owen managed to the pluck the one question that he already knew would render Mr. Leitch's assurances worthless.

"If they're safe, then why have they not been in contact?"

There was a silence, and it tripped something in his brain. Terror turned to anger, helplessness to an overwhelming urgency to start running and not stop until he had Cristina in his arms again.

"I... Dr. Hunt, I don't know what else I can tell you. But there is still the possibility that your colleagues are all alive and well. We just have to wait until morning."

"My wife was on that plane," Owen said softly, and it was halfway between fury and a frightening surge of grief. "Whatever has happened to them, if any of them are injured, they will struggle to make it through the night. I was a Major in the US Army, Mr. Leitch. I know how difficult it is to survive overnight with no equipment and no supplies. I also know how to find people in the dark even if no one else is prepared to try."

He barely noticed his voice rising, so focused was his mind on his plan of action. "I need to speak to whoever is coordinating the rescue operation. I imagine that's the County Sherriff's Office?"

"Yes, Wallowa County—"

"And I need to get to their HQ," he went on, ignoring Mr. Leitch, who seemed to be crumbling under the force of Owen's resolve. "I presume you have a helicopter I can take?"

"I— Well, not really, Dr. Hunt."

"Not really?" He had expected this answer and knew exactly how to get around it. "I trusted your airline to carry six of my staff – six of the best surgeons in the entire country – and you 'don't really' have a helicopter to fly me out to find them? Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea what I will do to you and your goddamn company if you don't do everything in your power to help me right now, Mr. Leitch?"

"There's no need to raise your voice—"

"Oh, I think there is." When had he gotten to his feet? He was leaning on the conference table, subconsciously putting his mouth closer to the phone, all the better to make himself heard. "There's every need. If something has happened to them—" He pictured Cristina, and his heart thumped painfully against his ribcage. "Then I will never forgive myself, and I will never forgive you either. Now I know that you have a whole fleet of aircrafts at your disposal, no doubt including one or two personal helicopters, and I am going to drive to Sea-Tac immediately and expect to board one in thirty minutes' time. Is that clear?"

Mr. Leitch sighed. "Certainly. I will call my personal pilot and have a chopper ready for you. Once again, I am so sorry, Dr. Hunt."

His apology was genuinely heartfelt and suddenly Owen felt a great shudder of emotion running through his body, forcing him back into his chair. "So am I," he muttered, putting his head in his hands and rubbing his eyes. What a day... And he knew, even as he tried to deny it, that it was undoubtedly going to get a whole lot worse.

"Cristina?"

"Mm?"

"My gum's getting hard. It's starting to make my jaw ache."

Cristina didn't answer. Despite the freezing cold that was creeping through her bones and the hunger tearing at her insides, and despite her almost overwhelming terror at the night ahead and her complete and utter exhaustion, the only thing she could think about was her husband. Did he know they were missing yet? Would she ever see him again? The thought that she wouldn't was more painful and frightening than everything else put together and there was just no room for Meredith's jaw ache amid the thunderstorm of emotions inside of her.

"We almost died today," she said quietly, thoughtfully almost. "We should have died, probably. Remember that plane crash last year? One survivor out of so many other passengers."

"Yeah, but we didn't."

Cristina turned to her. "Lexie did," she said sadly, and then felt a twinge of guilt as a wave of momentarily-forgotten grief passed across Meredith's face. "Mark might, too."

"Don't say that."

"Why? We're doctors, board-certified and everything. Mark's chances of making it through the night after a pericardiocentesis with the tube from a bottle of lotion are absolutely minimal. Arizona lost blood, and no doubt she's already growing some lethal bacteria in that wound."

"Why are you doing this?" Meredith frowned, clearly upset, but Cristina barely noticed.

"People die all the time. Allthe time. We could have died today. Owen could die tomorrow."

She pictured him as she said his name, laughing somewhere, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar and his tie gone. He turned to look at her, his blue eyes so warm – in a way she hadn't seen for so long. She closed her own eyes and clung to this image with everything she had left.

"He could get hit by a motorcycle on his morning run," she said shakily, "or be in a car crash or fall down the stairs and break his neck."

It was too painful to put images to her own words and she concentrated hard on his lovely face. On the creases around his eyes and mouth, on his long blonde lashes and his scratchy stubble, on his lips and the way they parted to show his teeth whenever she made him smile. She missed him all the time, every single day. She missed how he smelled and his hands and knowing he would always be there whenever she needed to see him. She missed being loved unconditionally, even when she didn't deserve it. She knew she was difficult to love, but she wished with all her heart that it didn't physically hurthim to do so.

Those words, reliving them over and over again, physically hurt her too. And worst of all, she knew she deserved them – not for the abortion but for the aftermath, the cowardice. The not making him her person part and the dawning realization that he should have been given that title and respect a long time ago.

"You're thinking about Owen?" Meredith's question interrupted her thoughts again. Her tone was one of surprise and it irritated Cristina.

"Of course I am. Did you not just hear what I said? We nearly died, Mer. Of course I'm thinking about him."

I always am,she didn't say.

Owen left his number with Mr. Leitch and then summoned every last scrap of energy from every cell of his body to stand up, put on his jacket and leave the room. Cristina was everywhere he looked, right there with him every time he breathed, and he was so overcome by the scent of her hair in the ominous calm of the quiet hospital corridors that he almost mowed down Dr. Bailey.

"Sorry—"

"Chief, I was just coming to find you." He looked down at her, feeling strangely like he was in a dream. "We just got a call about multiple casualties from an RTA over on Mercer Island."

"I'm sure you can handle it, Dr. Bailey," he said as he began to walk away, not having heard a word she'd said. "I really have to be somewhere."

"Hey!" She followed him as he headed towards the main entrance. "What's going on? And what happened to the team with the conjoined twins? I need some residents in the pit."

Miranda watched as his blue eyes softened and his face seemed to crumple in on itself. "The plane went down," he murmured, running a hand through his hair. "I have no idea where they are or if they're..."

For a long moment they gazed at each other, sharing both horror and disbelief at what Owen said and didn't say. They were in a plane crash? Miranda Bailey was rendered speechless for one of the very few times in her life. Why oh why did this always happen to them at Seattle Grace?She sent a silent prayer up to whoever was listening to bring every one of her colleagues, her friends, home safely.

"I'm going to find them," Owen was saying now, and she refocused on his words. "Can you call Richard and let him know—"

But they were interrupted by the man himself, along with April, Alex and Jackson. "Ah, Dr. Bailey, Dr. Hunt," Richard said jovially. "We abandoned dinner after Yang and Grey failed to show. Do you know what's happened to them?"

Owen was looking upwards, out of the impressive glass windows of the hospital entrance and into the cold night sky, clearly unable to repeat himself again. Bailey took a deep breath as she tried to steady her own rising tide of panic. "Their plane to Boise went down. We, um... we don't know where they are."

She watched four faces process the news: frowning as if they hadn't heard correctly, followed by the slow dawn of shock and comprehension, and then outright fear and gasps for breath.

"Well, what are we all doing standing around?" Alex shouted eventually, looking at each of them expectantly. His loyalty and bravery never failed to make her proud. "We have to do something! We have to find them!"

"Dr. Hunt was just on his way—" Bailey began, but Owen cut her off.

"I'm going alone." He just couldn't deal with anyone else's grief right now, not when he had so much of his own to contemplate, and he would not let anyone distract him from finding Cristina and his colleagues. He would not lose them – he had lost enough people in his life already. And he especially would not lose his wife.

He would find her tonight or die trying.

"Karev, you're needed here. There are multiple casualties coming into the ER. And don't even try to argue," he said forcefully as Alex began to protest. "Richard, can you run the ship while I'm gone? And Callie and Julia need to know what's happened. Avery?"

"I— Yeah, of course. I'll tell them," Jackson said softly, still in shock.

"Thank you. I'll call as soon as I know anything." Owen was already heading towards the main doors, but turned back as a sudden thought occurred to him. "And can we keep it quiet for now? I don't want everyone panicking."

He didn't wait to see them all nod and was almost outside when Dr. Webber called after him: "I'm sure they'll all be okay. There's probably another explanation."

I hope so, Owen prayed as he ran out into the night, realizing just how freezing it was and renewing his promise to himself, and Cristina, to save her.

I'm coming, he thought desperately, wishing she could hear him. I'm coming to fight for you. I'm sorry, and I love you. I love you so much.

The sounds of the night filtered through the tense atmosphere between them: wind and rustling and a bird call somewhere far away. Cristina wondered idly if there were bears in these parts.

"So, if Owen's suddenly your person," Meredith said, trying to sound conversational but failing, "How come you decided to go to Mayo anyway?"

And there it was, the million dollar question, sitting on the very top of the huge pile of unknowns that Cristina just could not find any answers to.

"I don't know," she murmured, closing her eyes again and letting her mind flood with all the memories she had been trying to suppress so she didn't have to deal with what they meant. "We slept together yesterday. And at the time, just afterwards, I thought I was leaving because it was right – for my career and for me. I thought I was saying goodbye to him."

Saying goodbye to their life together, their life which was so tangled up and hurtful, so full of holes that she had come to believe they would never manage to patch them all up. Until last night. Until now. They'd tried, for a little while with sex, which was just a temporary pin – shiny but oh so sharp. It stabbed them both with their own weakness as they tried to lie back and hide in the post-coital intimacy, where neither of them could ever quite manage to look the other in the eye.

And the counseling... Well, that had ripped apart last threads of hope and created one giant abyss into which he sunk down with the abortion and she drowned in his subsequent unfaithfulness, both of them utterly unable to understand, and yet knowing implicitly, how they had ended up there.

He would always love her, which meant he would always be hurting. And for so long she had been feeling exactly the same way. That was one of the main reasons why she wanted to leave Seattle – and him. To escape that constant pain.

But today... today everything had changed. Today she had gained a perspective on life which she had glimpsed so brutally as a nine-year-old child but had been unable to fully appreciate until now. It took her back to the OR on that godforsaken day when a madman held a gun to her head and she had truly believed she was going to die. That day when Owen had walked in and put his life before hers, and he'd decided that he wanted to marry her and she knew that they were in it forever.

She thought back to the sex and how she had expected to feel this other woman's presence in bed beside them – haunting him, or her, or them both. After Owen had broken her trust so cruelly, Cristina hadn't been sure she would ever be able to open up so intimately to him again. But she had. From the second she'd kissed him, the world fell away and it was just the two of them again – free, connected, absolved.

By sleeping with him last night, she had, in fact, forgiven him. And she knew there was so much else to talk about, so many other holes which maybe they would never fix completely, but as far as she was concerned, she was done now. Done crying. Done running away. Done giving up on them.

"So you weren't saying goodbye to him?"

Meredith once again broke into her thoughts, and for a moment, Cristina struggled to remember what she'd been saying under the gravity of her life-changing revelation.

"We've been in a freaking plane crash, Mer," she sighed, already beginning to feel the first prickles of regret that she hadn't reached this conclusion months ago. She looked straight into her friend's eyes, wondering if she had any idea what had just occurred. "Lexie's dead. And Mark… He loved her. He loved her, and he was too late. They wasted so much time apart when they could have just forgiven and forgotten and been happy together. And now because of that, all I can think about is holding my husband and telling him it's all gonna be okay because life is clearly too damn short."

"Cristina, he cheated on you!"

"Yes, I know that," she snapped back. "But have you ever, just for a second, tried to imagine it? If you and Derek were fighting, and he had gotten drunk and had a meaningless one night stand with some random woman whose name he didn't even remember. If, worst of all, you knew it was partly your fault because you pretended everything was fine when you knew it wasn't. Until one day, there is just no more room under the rug to shove everything, and he's shouting, 'You killed our baby!' in front of all your friends.

"It was one stupid mistake, and it hurts. It really, really hurts. Especially because he wanted it to hurt. But the thought of never getting to laugh together again or going home to him at night or to just knowing that he's always there – the thought of feeling how Mark is feeling right now – that hurts so much more. Somuch more.

"I would give anything right now to see him. Anything. And you don't get to judge me for that because A) if you and Derek were in this situation you would do exactly the same, and B) it's actually none of your business."

"Excuse me?" Meredith's indignation, her apparent surprise, only fuelled Cristina's fire.

"God, Meredith! He's my husband, my 'person.' Don't you get it?" After six years of friendship where she had supported "her person's" every move – her relationships, marriage, career, family issues, miscarriage and adoption – it was about damn time she was granted the same unconditional backing in return.

"You and I are best friends, but Owen is the love of my life. You should have been supportive of me all this time we've been fighting because I needed you to help me make the right decision, and all you've done is bully me into moving across the country with you.

"Don't you think there's something wrong with that? I know you've never liked him, and you've never missed an opportunity to let either of us know that. But for once in my life, I think I am about to choose him, and it's not a moment too soon. That is, if we ever get out of these woods and I get the chance to tell him how sorry I am for everything that's happened."

There was a long silence. Her words, and their implications, filled the air around them and hung there, ugly and awkward. And while the timing was less than ideal, stranded as they were in a forest in the middle of the night, Cristina felt a little relief that she had finally vocalized everything that had been poisoning their friendship for so long.

Meredith, to her credit, looked both stunned and uncomfortable. And then, as so often happened between them, the argument was noted and put aside as quickly as it had started.

"Actually, I kinda wish Owen was here," Meredith muttered, her teeth chattering noticeably now. "At least he'd be able to light a fire. He wouldn't let the last match go out."

Her self-pity made Cristina smile slightly. "Of course he wouldn't." She pictured him once again, this time dressed in army fatigues like the very first time they had met. He was right in front of her, rubbing sticks together and grinning boyishly as flames burst to life.

She wasn't sure how long she indulged in this vision for but when she turned back to look at Meredith, she had fallen asleep.

"Mer, wake up." Cristina nudged her, feeling the bitter ache of cold crystallize her bones. Despite their differences, she did not want to be left to wait out the night alone. "Mer. Meredith!"

She got a few syllables uttered in response, but even in the darkness she could see that Meredith was deathly pale, her lips a frightening shade of blue. For only the second time that day – the first being when she lost her shoe – Cristina began to panic. She shouted her friend's name over and over, half hoping that her voice might rouse some of the others too even though she knew that they were probably succumbing to hypothermia as well.

She felt Meredith's pulse which was weak but steady, and then realized she should probably check on everyone else too. "Stay with me, Mer," she murmured as she climbed slowly to her feet, every muscle and joint protesting.

Derek was unconscious but alive, as were Arizona, Jerry and, quite miraculously, Mark. They were all freezing cold, barely breathing, but something was keeping them all there. Was it the hope of rescue?

Come on, Owen, Cristina thought desperately. Please find us. We can't last much longer.

She sat back down beside Meredith, trying to get as close as possible and share whatever warmth she had. "Wake up Mer," she said softly, peering into her face and willing her to open her eyes. "There's a helicopter coming, I know it. We're gonna be rescued in no time at all. Just stay awake, that's all you have to do. Stay awake. Stay here with me, and we'll wait for it."

And Cristina waited, unsure if it was for a helicopter or a cold, endless sleep of her own.

It turned out that Mr. Leitch's pilot, a friendly guy called Mike, was ex-Air Force. Owen was forced to explain the nature of this late evening trip and spent the two-hour journey discussing the situation from a military perspective, deciding what they could do to help.

Mike sympathized – his daughter had been caught in an avalanche while skiing in Canada and he had flown out there straight away in his own chopper, desperate to find her, to do something. He also happened to be a volunteer pilot for northern Washington Search and Rescue, and he immediately offered his help to Owen.

However, the helicopter they were currently in didn't have all the necessary equipment to track people down at night, and so the flight passed quickly as they made plans to persuade the Wallowa County Sherriff's team to resume their search. "It's all bureaucracy," Mike said evenly. "It's all about paperwork and ensuring the safety of the staff. You must know what that's like, running a hospital." Owen smiled. "They have the means to search at night but clearly not the balls."

"Is that because of the weather?" Owen asked, eternally grateful to this man who had apparently been sent from heaven just at the right moment. He had also kept his mind off of the emotional side of the situation, focusing him on the facts, which was exactly what he needed.

"Maybe," Mike shrugged. "We'll have to see when we get there. But I know how you're feeling and if it were me, I would fly out in a hurricane to look for my friends, my family."

"I can't thank you enough for doing this for me," Owen said sincerely as they approached the airfield in Enterprise, Oregon.

"Like I said, I've been there. We'll find your colleagues and your wife before morning. I'm sure of it."

Owen sent up a prayer that Mike was right as they began to descend.

Sherriff Jim Garrett was not impressed to receive a call from work at almost ten o'clock at night, but quickly forgot his irritation when the nature of the emergency was revealed. He rushed to the office, arriving not five minutes later, where he greeted the two unexpected visitors with barely disguised bewilderment.

"Dr. Owen Hunt, ex-Army Major. Thank you for coming in to meet with us," Owen said, shaking the Sherriff's hand. "This is Colonel Mike Duggan, he flies for Search and Rescue in northern Washington."

The two men shook, and Owen continued: "I'm sure your officer told you over the phone why we're here. Six of my staff, including my wife, are lost somewhere in your territory and we need you to find them."

Jim sighed. He had met many relatives of missing persons over the years, all desperate for his team to do more and more – not realizing that if more could be done, they would already be doing it.

"Dr. Hunt, I assure you that if we could be out there right now, we would. I spoke to the head of our search and rescue division just before I left work this evening and he told me the pilot on duty was not comfortable flying through the night given the weather conditions. It is entirely their judgment and decision to fly at any time, and I'm afraid we just have to wait until morning."

"I didn't come all this way to be told to wait until morning," Owen said, clearly trying to contain his anger. "I have an exceptionally skilled pilot right here who is willing to fly whatever the weather. All we need is a helicopter with the correct equipment."

"I'm afraid I can't authorize that," Jim replied, keeping his cool. He knew how hard these situations were on people's relatives, had seen it hundreds of times before, and was confident he could deal with it and be back home in time for the late night news.

"Then who can?"

Owen's steely blue gaze caught him off guard.

"Well... I mean, if anyone could, it would be me. But in this situation, I can't."

"And why not?"

Jim Garrett was never one to panic, but then again he had never been in this situation before: confronted by a former Army surgeon and Air Force pilot who were clearly in no mood for a discussion. He recognized resolve – he had a lot of it himself and always favored officers who displayed it too – and suddenly realized that this was a fight he was going to lose. He didn't know if it was the grief in Dr. Hunt's eyes which made him seem so formidable, but he seemed to have grown two feet in height, filling the reception area of the station as he stared Jim down.

"There's paperwork," he said lamely, and the two men seemed to smile slightly. "I can't just loan an aircraft to a pilot I've never met before. What if there is another incident and I need to scramble a team with no helicopter?"

"In this weather?" Owen scoffed. "I thought it was too poor to fly in? And I refuse to believe that you have only one chopper at your disposal."

"Well—"

"Look, we're wasting time arguing," Mike said calmly. "I have all my paperwork with me, I always carry it in my cockpit. You can authorize this, Sir, and you will, because if it was your wife lost out in the woods, I have no doubts that you would throw every pilot in this country into finding her."

And that was that. Jim turned and headed into his office, the two men following behind him, wondering what the hell had just happened and what would become of him when everyone else found out.

"You're doing the right thing," Mike told him quietly, resting a hand on his shoulder.

"I hope so. In all my forty years in the police force, I'm not sure I've ever put my neck on the line for someone like this."

He thought of his wife, his kids, imagining them stranded in a cold, dark forest. Then he opened a filing cabinet and pulled out the paperwork.

Think warm thoughts. You're not stranded in the middle of the freaking woods and freezing to death. No, you're stranded on a deserted island and wishing you were freezing to death because it's super hot. And you're not thirsty or starving. In fact, you're full. Stuffed with food.

Cristina's stomach growled in contradiction.

"This isn't working," Cristina muttered to herself. Whoever came up with this "mind over matter" crap clearly hadn't had to survive hypothermia. Or, if they did, they were some super Zen monk that could bend a fork with his mind. Cristina, on the other hand, felt colder than she did before – if that were even possible.

Leave it to her to survive a plane crash only to die in the middle of the woods. Cristina and nature never did mix. And now she had a legitimate case for refusing to go camping with Owen.

Owen.

No matter how cold, how hungry, how thirsty she was. Her thoughts kept coming back to Owen. He was the anchor of thought she clung onto for the strength to fight off the siren's call of fatigue and unconsciousness.

Cristina closed her eyes and gently traced a finger across her shivering lips. It seemed like an eternity ago that his teeth had gently nibbled on her bottom lip then soothed it with a soft kiss. Or tickled her cheek with his ever-present five o'clock shadow as he tucked her into his embrace. Or traced idle patterns across her back as they remained lost in their own thoughts, putting off the moment they'd have to remember the still-broken shards of their marriage.

Had she really been ready to say goodbye to him?

Meredith's question came back to haunt her. On some level, maybe she had been. In that moment, it had felt easier to give up on continuing to try and to just start anew at Mayo. It had always been her gut instinct – to cut her losses and run when the going got tough. She ran from Colin Marlowe when he had wanted things to get serious. She had nearly run from Burke on their wedding day. But with Owen, she had stayed.

Owen was different. She had known that from the first time she'd laid eyes on him: when he'd jumped from the back of the ambulance, having trached a man with a pen, saving his life – all the while having a gaping thigh wound. Then, when he'd stapled his own leg – without anesthesia – she'd nearly jumped his bones right there. And if she had grown up to be the girly girl her mother had hoped, she would've bought into the cliché of falling for the man who literally swept her off her feet.

But she wasn't the type to believe in fairytale happily ever afters. And she certainly was no Disney princess. She was messy, often insensitive, and extremely career-driven.

Yet he loved her for all her flaws, admired her for her strengths, and forgave her for her mistakes. How could she not do the same for him? Especially when neither of them were blameless.

There were still issues that needed to be resolved. And Cristina held no illusions that it would be an easy road. Goodness knows, they had tried already. But he hadn't had enough time to grieve for the future he'd dreamt about for so long. And she hadn't been ready to face his sorrows and bear them. Maybe they would be ready now. Now that Cristina was at the proverbial fork in the road: to go left – and leave behind not only the pain but the chance at a life together – or to go right – and stay with the man who showed her what it meant to love and be truly loved in return.

How could she leave that behind?

The answer was simple. She couldn't.

Owen looked out through the windows of the helicopter, willing his eyes to see through the pitch black darkness of the night. It didn't help that the woods were dense and the ground was shrouded under the foliage. Adrenaline pulsed through his body, causing his heartbeat to echo loudly in his ears, as he searched for signs of his team of surgeons – but most importantly, his wife.

He would carry the loss of his team with him – of that, he was sure. But he could not help but selfishly hope that if only onewere to survive, that it would be Cristina.

Fight for her. Teddy's parting words taunted him.

Would he get the chance to fight for her? No matter how desperately he attempted to remain hopeful, there was still the persistent fear that there would be no more waking up beside Cristina every morning, no more holding her small frame within his larger one, no more proving to her just how much they belonged together.

Owen had long accepted this truth: he could not imagine a future without her.

She was the love of his life. And though it often hurt to love her, she also had the unique ability to make him experience the kind of joy he'd never felt before. The type of happiness he thought he'd lost long ago – along with the part of his soul – in the blood-soaked sands of Iraq.

"Do you see anything?" Owen asked Mike, already anticipating the answer.

"No. "

Where are you? Owen asked silently, as if he expected a response. Please be okay. I don't know what I'd do without you.

Cristina startled awake, having nodded off momentarily.

Is there an earthquake?She thought to herself sleepily. Yet, the ground remained still. No, what Cristina perceived as an earthquake was in fact the blades of the helicopter slicing and echoing through the night sky above the canopy of the treetops.

The debris of the plane crash had cleared a haphazard line of sight with an imaginary arrow pointed toward the place where Cristina and the others camped.

Cristina tried to draw attention to where the plane crash survivors lay, but her vocal cords betrayed her. All that came out was a hoarse whisper – her throat parched from lack of water.

A last-ditch surge of energy raced through her veins as she clasped the previously defunct flare gun in her hand.

Work, damn it, she beseeched the inanimate object. The safety latch gave under her urgent fingers – as if it sensed her desperation. A blinding red light shot toward the heavens, and Cristina shielded her eyes from the intensity of its brightness – her eyes having long adjusted to the stark black of darkness.

Cristina nearly fainted in relief as the sound of the helicopter grew louder, signaling its return trajectory closer to their location. Groaning in effort, she rose to her feet and waved her uninjured arm above her head, trying to attract the attention of the search and rescue team.

The piercing beacon of white light wove back and forth as it sought her out. Finally, she was basked within its glow. They were found. Halle-freakin'-lujah.

She was one step closer to going home.

"There!" Owen shouted, pointing at the origin point of the flare. "Go back!"

Mike maneuvered the helicopter and scanned the area for a large enough clearing to land. "Hang on," he advised as he worked at setting down the helicopter safely.

Owen's heart had skipped a beat when the searchlight had caught Cristina's lone figure within its sights. She was alive. And based on the fact that she was still awake and capable of flagging them down, she was hopefully unharmed. An overwhelming sense of relief washed over him.

He felt like he could breathe again.

As the helicopter descended, Owen edged closer to the door – his body poised to leap out at the earliest second possible.

He could see Cristina limping toward the helicopter, waving her free arm. Owen noted her other arm being cradled within a makeshift sling, and his heart wrenched at the visual proof that she had been hurt. Yes, he knew it was inevitable. Plane crashes were unmerciful to its victims. But rationality and reason could not temper his sense of guilt over her pain – over the fact he hadn't been there for her.

If only he'd gone with her. If only they'd taken an earlier flight. If only, if only.

He couldn't dwell on those regrets now. There would be time enough to sift through the instances where a different decision could have been made. Where there could have been joy instead of sorrow or growth instead of regression.

The helicopter was now hovered only a few feet above the ground, and Owen could wait no longer. Propelling himself out of the doors, he ran toward Cristina.

The chill of the wind blew against his back as the helicopter landed behind him. He barely felt it. All his senses were zeroed in on reaching his wife and finally having her in his arms again.

Cristina shielded her face from the tornado swirls of leaves and Douglas fir needles. Through her partial vantage point, however, she swore she could see Owen coming towards her.

Am I hallucinating?

For the briefest moment, she believed in that terrifying possibility. That maybe her mind was playing a cruel trick on her, that there was no helicopter. That there was no escaping. Cristina choked back a sob. She didn't know if she could hang on much longer.

But then familiar, strong arms surrounded her, blocking the gusts of debris.

"Owen?" she whispered.

"Yes, it's me. I'm here, Cristina. I'm here."

She was home.

We defy the laws of nature by sheer willpower. We refuse to let our limitations dictate what we can accomplish, whether it's surviving a plane crash or repairing a broken marriage. We get creative, and we adapt. That is our strength – as individuals... But we cannot be expected to be strong all the time. And maybe that's part of the real reason why we are made to be so weak. It is so that we are drawn to depending on one other, to know that someone will catch us when we can no longer stand on our own.