A/N: Sigh. This story hates me. It won't leave me alone! I write and write and write and there's no end in sight.... Ah, well. Three chapters, I'd say. Not more. I dearly hope that the final chapter will be finished by next week, but I doubt it. It's exam time and I've got tons of school work, sorry. I'll try my best, promise.

Thanks: I want to say Thank you!!! to all my lovely reviewers. You're the best! I usually reply to reviews directly, but as I'm so busy lately, I thought my time would be better put into writing this, so now I want thank you all at once. And because some of you asked: Nope, I've never been in a car crash. Lucky me. It's just my imagination running wild.

Disclaimer: No money made....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 2

Unearthly silence was settling over the scene.

Lisbon wondered for a moment, if she had died and this was afterlife greeting her. But she quickly pushed the thought aside.

She was trapped somewhere, sandwiched between something hard and round in front and something relatively soft and broad in back. And she was sore. More so than she had been in a very, very long time.

The agent nudged her fumbled mind to work quicker, but her brain seemed to be uncooperative today.

Okay. One step at a time.

Where was she? The question was relatively easy to answer, after she opened her eyes which she hadn't realized were closed.

The sight that greeted her blurry vision was unpleasant, but informative.

She was sitting in a car. In the driver's seat if the steering wheel pinning her effectively against her seat was anything to go by.

Carefully, Lisbon then tried to move, starting with her fingers. Hm, not too bad. A tingling sensation was the only sign that not all was well. Next were her hands. Shallow cuts were stinging slightly, but it could have been much worse.

She proceeded like that, finding at least two or three broken or cracked ribs and a definitely broken leg. Oh, and not to forget a rather irritating head injury. Most likely a concussion.

The latter was also probably to blame for her scattered mind.

Now, she just had to find out what exactly hap-

"Oh my god", she whispered suddenly, her hoarse voice sounding eerily loud in the silence.

In a flash her memories had caught up with the situation and Lisbon immediately longed for the blessed ignorance of seconds before.

As fast as possible - which was about as fast as a snail's pace - she turned her head towards the passenger side, fearing what she would find.

Her eyes focused on the sight and a gasp escaped her lips.

Jane was clearly unconscious; his head slumped against the headrest, eyes closed. His normally dark blonde curls were tinged red and matted down with blood.

The beige jacket he had worn was ripped, his skin white as a sheet.

A lump was threatening to suffocate the dark-haired agent as she took in her companion's pallor. He was breathing, though, wasn't he?

Lisbon swallowed hard. He had to. He couldn't just leave her here. Not like this!

Okay, she had to stay calm. Concentrate on her training. Everything would turn out alright.

Shakily her hand reached over, gingerly touching his neck.

Breathlessly she waited, every muscle in her body tensing with each agonizing second. The trembling of her fingers made it complicated to feel anything. But it had to be there. Please, it-

There! A weak but steady rhythm under her fingertips and Lisbon was ready to break down sobbing in relief.

But, she knew it was too soon to rejoice. Jane might still be alive, but from the way he looked that tide could turn quickly.

So, what next?

Lisbon wanted to scream in frustration. Couldn't her brain choose a more convenient time to go off-line?!

In any case, she would first have to check how serious their situation was. Danger assessment. Shouldn't have taken her this long to figure that out, right?

Oh, well. Back to the problem at hand. Jane was still slumped in his seat, unmoving and for once oblivious to the world.

Lisbon carefully tried to scoot a little closer to the blonde, but the slightest movement sent daggers through her chest, reminding her that there was still an unyielding steering wheel holding her in place.

Gritting her teeth she tried again, but gasped as something shifted where solid bone should have been. The results of her efforts were black dots dancing in front of her vision and the loss of precious seconds. Knowledge gained from this? Moving was a bad idea.

Good. Well, not good, but anyway she would have to work it out with what she had.

Refocusing her attention from the finally receding pain to her companion, Lisbon slowly reached over as far as she could, hissing as her body protested. Carefully she started to feel along Jane's body, trying hard to ignore that it was Jane's body, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

/ ~~~~~~ \

In another equally black SUV, agents Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt were discussing about calling their boss or not.

They had started off at the CBI headquarters in a convoy, but shortly after, Rigsby had noticed that they hadn't packed any rations for the trip and insisted on stopping somewhere.

Cho had argued back that it would cost them unnecessary time and that they wouldn't drive far anyway, but when Rigsby was hungry - and that man was always hungry - he could behave like a pouting little girl, indeed, as Van Pelt had so graciously put it.

This statement made the agent first splutter, then turn bright red, before feeling deeply offended. Cho subsequently teased him until the tall agent snapped back, arms defensively crossed in front of his chest.

After that, Van Pelt had taken pity on him, subsequently siding with him and they had turned into a drive-thru.

Of course, when peace settled once more over the occupants of the car in form of their order arriving, Lisbon and Jane were already gone.

They got back on the road, driving in silence for a while, interrupted only by Rigsby's shy offers of a French fry to Van Pelt.

Slowly the traffic eased up and soon they had the street for themselves.

"Hey, you think, we should call Lisbon?", Cho asked out of the blue.

Rigsby shot him a quick look from the passenger side and shrugged.

"Why, we're still on the road?"

"Yea, but she'll want to know why we aren't behind them anymore."

Van Pelt leaned forward in the backseat to be considered part of the conversation.

"We're not that far behind them, are we?", she inquired.

"Well, I for my part don't want to be told off for hanging behind", came the reply from the driver seat.

Rigsby raised an eyebrow doubtfully.

"You don't think she will be angry, right?"

He only got a pointed glance from his friend.

Lisbon hadn't been the most balanced person after their last case and the silent arguments with Jane. It would have been very optimistic, bordering on insanely naive, to hope that after a car ride with only the two of them, their lead agent would be any happier.

The other two seemed to come to the same conclusion as Van Pelt quickly took out her cell phone and Rigsby grimaced slightly apologetically.

/ ~~~~~~ \

Teresa Lisbon was using all her years of training to remain as focused and calm as possible. She was pretty sure that several minutes had passed during her assessment of Jane's injuries.

Not once had the blonde reacted in any way, although Lisbon was sure her uncoordinated prodding must have hurt like hell. Yet, there hadn't been so much as a sharper intake of breath, nothing.

As a result, Teresa was slowly but surely starting to panic. Her repeated mantra to stay calm was only helping so much and her findings were adding their part to her worry.

From what she could tell, Jane had also a few broken ribs, a rather serious concussion, or worse, though Lisbon dearly hoped for the first, and a definitely broken arm. She couldn't reach anything below his waistline, meaning that she had no way of telling if his legs were hurt.

That was all she could find, but judging from his pallor there was a high probability of internal injuries. Jane was white as a sheet, the dark crimson decorating part of his face standing out starkly.

Lisbon was trying hard to think of anything helpful. What was clear even to her befuddled mind was that they needed help. Although this task might well prove to be more easily said than done, considering that for one, the small agent was still trapped and therefore banned from getting help personally. And Jane wasn't doing anything anytime soon, other than pose for a figure from a horror movie.

One eye fixed on her unmoving friend, Lisbon started to look around for anything that might work as an improvised SOS signal, but among the splintered glass, rugged bent metal edges and plastic shards she couldn't see anything useful.

Suddenly Lisbon flinched violently, immediately regretting her body's reaction when pain sliced through her nerves. A shrill ringing had penetrated the heavy silence. A familiar ringing.

"Cell phone!", she whispered, partly surprised, partly relieved.

Of, course! Why hadn't she thought of it sooner?!

Now, the question was, where the hell had the small device disappeared to?

For the moment Lisbon wrenched her attention away from the blonde next to her to look for the wayward mobile.

It took her a moment, before she located the sound. It was coming from the floor under the mangled steering wheel.

A disheartened sigh escaped her lips. The phone could as well have been down the Grand Canyon. No way was she able to reach under the very thing keeping her trapped.

But she wouldn't give up this easily! Now, she had a mission!

Her own cell phone might have been off limits, but there was a chance that Jane had secured his better than she had done, meaning it might still be in one of his numerous pockets.

Clenching her teeth against the pain moving around brought, Lisbon carefully reached over once more, patting the pockets in hope of finding a digital life-line out of this mess.

Her search produced a twelve-sided dice, a pack of cards, keys, his wallet and finally a slim mobile phone. It looked a little worse for wear, new scratches caused by tiny shards of glass leaving a mark over the otherwise clean display, but it was working and that was all Lisbon had hoped for.

By now, her own cell had fallen silent again and she briefly wondered if it had been one of the team already waiting for them in Colfax, but she pushed the thought aside. Thinking of ifs and whens wasn't helping their situation.

Just as she was about to punch in 9-1-1, the device went off, signaling an incoming call. In her surprise Lisbon almost dropped it, but she managed to keep hold of it, hastily pressing the accept button.

"Hello?", she knew she sounded ridiculous, but then and there she wouldn't have cared if it had been the Dalai Lama calling.

"Lisbon? What are you doing with Jane's phone?"

Van Pelt. Man, she had never been this happy to hear her junior agent's voice.

"I - We," she stopped, drew a deep breath and tried to bring her thoughts into a sensible order, before speaking again.

"Van Pelt, listen, I - I mean, we, had an accident."

A sharp intake of breath, followed by distant unintelligible voices answered her.

"Oh my god! Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you need help? Can we do something? Where are you?"

It was as if it all rushed out of her - like a dam breaking, making it difficult for Lisbon to follow. Finally the other woman needed to breath and the senior agent managed to get a word in.

"Van Pelt. Stop, okay?", Lisbon waited a moment before continuing, "Good," she also took a deep breath, although it hurt like hell to do so. "We are on Placer Hills Road, somewhere after Pinecroft. A-a truck. It broadsided us and....", she threw a worried glance at her companion, "we need help. Fast."

Again there were the distant sounds of Rigsby and Cho over a driving vehicle. Then Van Pelt's voice came through again.

"We're only a bit behind, we should see - Oh my god!"

Lisbon grimaced at the horror in her junior agent's voice. She had guessed that it looked even worse from the outside, but from the complete and utter shock in the other's exclamation it must have looked real bad - like no way, anyone could have survived this bad.

She sighed and softly, hesitatingly reached over again to carefully press two fingers against Jane's neck. A wave of relief washed over her when the rhythm was still there.

"Van Pelt?", Lisbon inquired after a stretch of silence.

"Yea. Yea, we're here."

The voice now also came from outside the car. It seemed her agents had parked their car and gotten out to take a closer look.

"The trucker is dead."

Cho. She would know that monotone voice anywhere. What shocked her was the news he pronounced.

In all the time that had passed since the crash, Lisbon had somehow completely forgotten about the driver of the truck. The fact that he was dead gave the situation a much more serious atmosphere. Unbidden her eyes once again focused on Jane. He would make it out of this. She would personally kick his ass if he didn't.

"Ambulance is on the way!"

Ah, Rigsby. As always trying to be the protector, hating to see his fellow team members hurt in any way.

"Lisbon?", Van Pelt's voice pulled her back to the fact that she still had Jane's phone to her ear.

"Yea, I'm here."

She lightly pinched the bridge of her nose, not caring at all that her fingers left bloody smudges on her skin. How had this day gone to hell this quickly?

"Lisbon, how bad are you hurt? Is Jane okay?", the young agent seemed to be close to the proverbial edge, her voice deeply affected by worry.

"Erm", very eloquent, Lisbon thought, but ignored it, "I'm not too bad, but Jane...."

She trailed off, by now staring openly at the blonde, willing him to crack open those cerulean eyes and crack some joke about how he had again gotten to her. The eyes stayed closed.

"I'm worried about him", she finally voiced.

It was all she could really say. And even this small admittance cost her dearly, leaving the dark-haired agent once more struggling for control over her feelings.

But she would have to face reality later. Hysterics, tears, whatever her body and mind needed, had to wait.

For now, only the present problem counted. And the problem, the issue was to get Jane to a hospital. Quickly.

"Lisbon!"

The agent looked up, phone still pressed to her ear, although she didn't need it anymore. Van Pelt, together with Rigsby was carefully approaching the remains of their SUV. Lisbon could see them now through the cracks in what was left of their windshield.

Somehow the sight of someone familiar, of someone helping, took a heavy burden from her slim shoulders. She wasn't alone in this anymore. And damn, that felt so much better.

"Hey", her voice sounded weaker than she would have liked.

"Hey", Rigsby answered, by now standing at her side window.

For the first time since the crash Lisbon took in the scenery outside their trap. Lush green bushes had obviously softened their journey, not to mention the rather steep ascending hill right next to them.

And Lisbon realized with a start, they had been damn lucky. A few feet ahead, she could make out a massive tree.

She didn't want to picture what she and Jane would look like now, had they crossed such a tree's path. It definitely wouldn't have been a pleasant sight; that was for sure.

"Lisbon, how - Oh...", Rigsby's voice trailed off with an unusually frightened note.

Lisbon followed his stare, landing on her injured passenger. Quickly, she looked back again, fighting the lump in her throat.

"Get us out of here", was all she could tell him. It sounded more like a plea than an order, but right there it didn't matter.

Van Pelt had fought her way onto the jagged pieces left of the hood and was now peering in through the windshield.

"I don't know if it's wise to move him", she said, her voice strained.

Lisbon found her worried eyes before settling her gaze again on their consultant. Maybe it really wasn't the smartest thing to move him, but seriously, what choices had they?

Jane needed help as fast as possible. Sure, they could wait for the emergency personal to arrive and assess the situation, but how long would that take? Would it be too long for the blonde?

Lisbon shook her head slowly. She wouldn't risk waiting any longer. Her gut feeling was telling her to get out and she'd be damned if she didn't listen to it.

Thus decided, she relayed her plan to her fellow agents who swallowed hard but agreed.

Albeit it was a difficult decision, the execution proved to be the real problem.

Van Pelt stayed where she was on the hood of their former car, keeping an eye on Jane, while Rigsby started to attack the driver's side door. The metal groaned, joining in the agent's agitated huffs, but it didn't bulge.

"Cho!", he finally yelled, admitting defeat.

The Asian man hurriedly scrambled over to his friend's side, grimacing slightly at the sight of the once proud SUV.

"Lend me your hand please", Rigsby panted, gesturing towards the door.

Cho quickly took in the situation, his usually grim features darkening further, before he determinedly knocked out what little glass had remained and gripped the frame.

"On three", he said.

"One."

They both steeled themselves.

"Two."

Their grip tightened.

"Three."

Together they pulled with all their might, the door screeched and finally surrendered under their combined efforts.

When it burst open, the two agents stumbled backwards, landing in a tangled heap on the soft ground.

Lisbon let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. With the car door open, the feeling of being trapped eased considerably.

She felt lighter somehow, being able to look outside.

The feeling didn't last, though, as reality set back in. And reality was that their situation hadn't improved yet.

Carefully, the small woman tested her confines, but her ribs quickly reminded her to stay put.

By now, Rigsby and Cho had regained their footing and were hovering over her, trying to find a way to free her.

"How about we slowly put back the seat? Perhaps the mechanism's still working", came Rigsby's suggestion.

Cho took a moment to study the interior of the car, before giving his consent. Both looked to Lisbon for her opinion on the matter.

Wearily she nodded, already clenching her teeth, expecting the next few minutes to be filled with agony.

She was right.

When the two guys prodded the lever and started to lower the seat, a wave of piercing pain rushed through her body, making her gasp and shut her eyes against it.

Her fellow agents stopped at her reaction but after a curt nod from their suffering boss they carefully continued.

After what felt like an eternity, the pressure from the steering wheel was gone and the pain was slowly easing again. Enough so, that Lisbon felt able to carefully start moving towards freedom.

Rigsby hastily helped her climb out of the car, holding her from exhaustion trembling body, so she wouldn't fall and aggravate her injuries.

Her right leg was broken, forcing the dark-haired agent to lean heavily on her coworker.

Meanwhile, Cho had taken her place, climbing into the vehicle to get a better look at Jane who was by now looking even paler if that was possible.

From where Lisbon was, she couldn't see the other's face, but from the rigid set of his shoulders she concluded that it didn't look good.

Cho swallowed at the first real look he got at his friend. Jane was pale as a ghost, his breathing shallow. Crimson blood seemed to mock the agent, from various cuts and rips.

Though he didn't want to admit it, from what he could see, it bordered on a miracle that the blonde was still alive. And he feared that it would take a wonder of biblical dimensions for him to stay that way.

"How do we get him out?"

Van Pelt's insecure question roused the usually calm agent from his initial shock.

He took a deep breath, starting to search for the best way to free their partner from his predicament.

He didn't like what he found.

"We'll need to lift him up and out through the driver side", he stated flannelly.

From the sharp intake of breath he could tell that the young woman thought the same thing he did. They were both praying silently that they wouldn't cause more damage than was already there.

Cho's gaze flickered to meet the red-head's and after a second of contemplation they nodded. It was risky, but they didn't really have a choice.

Carefully, they set to work.

Van Pelt ripped away the already halfway gone windshield to be able to reach into the car. Cho corrected his stance, so he would be able to safely keep hold of the other man.

Then he softly tried to find a place to hold on to Jane without causing harm, while the red-headed agent did the same from up front.

Out side the car, Rigsby realized what the others were up to and slowly set Lisbon down on the floor to help them.

It went slow. A meticulous task that they all refused to fail.

Finally, with sirens already coming closer, they managed to carefully lay Jane down in the grass next to the car.

Outside the vehicle in sunlight, he looked even worse and all agents were immensely grateful for the arrival of an ambulance.

Running high on adrenaline, the team had to force themselves to stay back, as EMTs swarmed around their wounded partners.

Lisbon was immediately starting to snap at the young medic, ordering him to take care of Jane, she wouldn't go anywhere.

Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt smiled tiredly at each other. This was so typical of their boss. It was calming them a great deal to see this tiny bit of normalcy surface.

But their relief lasted only briefly as a statement from one of the EMTs made their blood run cold.

"He's stopped breathing...."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: Ah, so sorry. I know I'm evil. Must be the super boring history stuff driving my crazy. School is a bitch!

Please, please, please! Leave a review. Tell me what you think.