Alone In The Dark

by blakes8th

A team building event goes very badly wrong. This has some elements of Sandland in it, but if that's not your thing, don't let it put you off. The story is mostly about the team's family dynamic.

1. Chapter 1

Alone In The Dark

Disclaimer: New Tricks and all it's characters belong to the BBC. If I had any say, Anthony Calf would be in the main credits...Come on, it's been 9 years.

Rating:T to be safe.

Pairing; Sandland.

/

Lights.

Marvelous! He was seeing things now. He sighed, his warm breath a stark contrast to the ice forming on his lips. He watched the tiny yellow lights dancing in the distance, his body exhausted, he just wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep, but in this cold he knew that the moment he gave up, he was dead.

He tried to concentrate on anything other than the numbing pain in his feet, his hands which were balled up under his arms, in a strange sort of self embrace, were beyond pain, he could not feel them at all, his body shivering uncontrollably he tried to hide himself further down between the rocks, to get as much shelter as possible from the biting wind. He focused his eyes on the lights, 'will-o-the-wisp' a little voice in his head whispered. He remembered the story, told to him as a child, of fairy lights which lured travellers to their doom. He smiled to himself.

"Come on then." He whispered. They could take him if they wanted, he was beyond help, he was going to die out here on this bleak, freezing, desolate mountain side. He could accept that, he had already accepted his own demise, so long as the others didn't share his fate. His thoughts wandered to Sandra, her face ghostly white, contrasting with the bloom of red which seeped from the wound on her head. He remembered how he had last seen her, her unconscious form surrounded by Jack, Brian and Gerry. All battered, wet and freezing, huddled together for warmth, sheltering from the dark, wet and cold in that miserable hole. He prayed that he had succeeded in raising the alarm, that they would be found before the elements claimed four more victims. He watched the fairy lights in the distance, ethereal beings, or pockets of marsh gas? He didn't really care. He let out a small breath, a whisper on the wind, aimed to his children and to that woman, who he loved more than life itself.

"I love you." The words lost into wind. He gave into the cold and wet. He let the exhaustion claim him.

Robert Strickland closed his eyes.

/

Authors note: Ok. So who wants to know how he got to this point and what happens to the team?