Raymond Reddington had just survived his second plane crash. The first one had been many years ago under entirely different circumstances. And while technically the first one had been a chopper crash, he wasn't going to quibble about the details. In those first few moments after the jet had finally come to rest after it had careened through the treetops and been unceremoniously dumped on the ground, he found himself counting his blessings. Once more, he had escaped near death. A cat had nothing on Reddington. He'd survived so many times that to be relegated to just nine lives would have rendered him dead years ago.

And immediately after his silent thanks and contemplation on the manner of all things living and dead, he began to assess his current situation. It was dark. It was cold. And the wind was howling outside. Wiggling fingers and toes, and subsequently moving each joint didn't produce too much pain, though his left wrist was most definitely announcing its displeasure. So, no broken bones, apparently. Carefully moving his head and neck, he felt another head near his. Lizzie. Opening his eyes, he saw nothing. It was pitch black. Lifting his hand he felt Liz's head, gently moving around to her temples and felt the stickiness that could only signify blood. Her face had been bleeding before the crash though, he recalled.

"Lizzie," he whispered in her ear, as if to speak aloud in the darkness would break something, and cause the plane to plummet more. She didn't answer. And not wanting to move her, he then did call out into the darkness. For the one that was always there. For the one who was more a son to him than any living human being.

"Dembe."

The answer came immediately. So close that it startled him. His loyal Dembe had already left his seat at the front of the plane having fumbled his way through the darkness and was already at Red's side. He just didn't know it yet, until Red spoke.

"Raymond. I am here." And reaching out his hand, he felt his bosses shoulder, and in the darkness the two men clasped hands.

###

"Donald!"

What…?

"Donald, wake up."

Why…? I'm cold… why am I cold…?

"Unstrap him Dembe. "

Red… I don't… Ressler felt himself falling forward as the seat belt was released, and was alarmed when he fell into cold, wet snow. His face was buried in it, and for a moment he was sure he was outside - and sure he was going to drown in the stuff. Struggling to breathe with snow in his mouth and nose he panicked, unable to rise. But then hands were on his shoulders, pulling him back upright. And as they gripped his left shoulder, pain shot through it and he gasped so fast that he sucked in a mouthful of wet snow. Choking on it, he coughed painfully in the dark, each hack sending a shudder through his shoulder and tears down his cheeks. He was still unsure of what was going on. Am I inside or outside?

"Donald. We need to get you out of here before you freeze to death, my friend." Red was close by. He could hear his voice and feel his presence to his left, but could see nothing in the darkness.

His coughing slowing now as blinding tears still streamed down his cheeks, he sat back, trying to catch his breath. The air was frigid, causing sharp pains in his lungs at each intake of air. He was shivering so hard, he'd almost stopped moving. His body instead locked up in one mass of painfully tensed muscles, aggravating the pain in his left shoulder. How cold is it…?

Hands were on him now, as someone reached into his inner suit pocket and found what they were looking for. Light from his cell phone suddenly lit up the area, instantly chasing the inky blackness away. And as Red held the phone, Ressler saw immediately where he was and it all came flooding back.

"Oh God… oh God…," he panted, looking at the devastated cockpit. Snow had piled in through the shattered wind shield. Littered with tree debris, pine needles and broken glass, it filled half the cockpit. And where he'd fallen face first into the snow, the outline of half his face was traced in blood. Reaching his hand up to the right side of his face he felt cuts and sticky blood, but nothing major. His right ear hurt and feeling it carefully, he half expected to find a plastic deer tag attached to it.

Relieved his ear was still in one piece, he looked down at the front of him, finding his lower body buried under the heavy weight of the snow. The sight of it made him strangely claustrophobic, and when trying to move his legs produced nothing, he closed his eyes and told himself to calm down. It was just snow, he told himself, but snow shouldn't be inside!

"It's okay Donald…we'll get you out." Red was patting his shoulder - his left shoulder and he flinched away from that. He felt Dembe now, on his knees and digging the snow away from his left leg. As he worked, Ressler's brain finally started to wake up and started thinking broader afield than the cockpit around him.

"Liz! Is Liz okay?" He asked Red, wondering why the hell he hadn't asked about her sooner.

Red barely missed a beat, but Ressler noticed the brief pause. His brain was fully awake now. "She'll be okay. We all got banged up in the crash, but she'll be okay."

"BE okay? You mean she's not okay now?" Ressler asked, as Dembe freed his left leg from the snow. Moving to the other side, squeezing in the tight spot, he began to dig out Ressler's right leg in similar fashion.

"She should be fine Donald. No worse off than the rest of us. Though, Campbell is pretty bad. He has a broken leg, and several broken ribs. He's not the picture of health, that's for sure."

"The pilot?" Ressler looked beyond Red, but the light from the cell phone didn't travel that far, and he couldn't see the pilot.

"He's done for, I'm afraid…" Red sighed, and didn't shine the light in that direction.

Ressler felt his right leg lighten as the snow was dug from around him. As he made to climb out of the co-pilot's seat, they heard a low sound from the pilot in the seat beside him. Red immediately turned the phone light to the man. Ressler almost gasped at the sight, realizing how right Red's assessment was. The pilot was impaled in his seat, a snapped tree limb having come hurtling through the windshield and straight into his abdomen. He should have died instantly, yet by some quirk of fate, he had lasted longer. Perhaps because he still had one more thing to say.

Red leaned over to the man, surprised that against all odds he was alive, though barely. "Don't move," he told the pilot, making a futile attempt to appear as if his situation weren't dire.

Ressler was out of the co-pilot's seat, accomplishing a feat that would have been impossible if Dembe had not literally hauled him from it. His cold, wet legs didn't want to work after being encased in wet snow. Looking at the pilot, he saw the glaze over the man's eyes. He was not long for this world. And then amazingly, the pilot focused his gaze on Ressler and began to speak.

"…Julie…tell Julie…sorry… loved her…tell her…" he panted, barely audible over the wind outside.

Ressler stood by him on numb legs, almost leaning on Red for support, while looking at the pilot apologetically. "I don't know where…" he began, but Red stopped him.

"We will tell her. Rest assured, we will make sure she knows," he told the pilot calmly, giving the man his dying wish. Ressler glanced at Red, positive this wasn't the first time he'd done that for someone.

Behind the pilot's eyes, Ressler saw a glimmer of life as he whispered to Red, "…thank…you…" And once again, he looked at Ressler, and this time reached out a bloodied hand. Ressler didn't even hesitate and took the pilot's frigid hand in his own, barely able to feel him with how cold his own extremities were.

The pilot spoke again, whispering, but they could still hear his words. "…you…did good… sir…" he told Ressler, and took another ragged, panting breath. His last breath.

And as Ressler stood shakily in the cockpit holding the hand of the pilot, he looked into the pilot's eyes and once again watched someone die in front of him. It could have so easily been him. He could have been the one impaled to the co-pilots seat, struck down by a broken piece of tree that would normally have spent its life growing slowly and rising to the sky in a forest. Instead, becoming an instrument of death as a plane dropped from the sky.

"Rest in peace, sir…" he whispered, and then looked away, unable to look into those dead eyes and the ragged, bleeding hole in the man's abdomen a second longer.

Red gently closed the pilot's dead eyes, and then looked at Ressler as he patted the agent on the back. "Come on Donald, let's get you to where it's drier. Not much warmer, but definitely drier."

Supported by Dembe and walking on legs that were numb with cold, he staggered out of the cockpit as Red sealed the door behind them.

###

In the cabin, Ressler wasn't sure where Liz was in the dark. Their way illuminated by the glow from the phone, they moved forward in the cocoon of light, the darkness receding in front of them then closing back in behind them as they moved down the aisle.

Where-?" he started and Red interrupted, knowing exactly whose whereabouts he was asking for.

"She's back here." He led the way, passing by a quiet, sullen Young who didn't even acknowledge them. In the next seat, Campbell was half lying down, panting. Both had blankets on them. Apparently Red or Dembe were pretty good flight attendants. Ressler barely paid them any attention as the light from the phone left them behind in the dark.

Ressler fell down in the seat across from Liz, catching his breath at the pain in his shoulder as he did so. Leaning forward to look at her in the light from the phone, he could still see the blood on her face. It was dry now, forming a dark red river running down the side of her pale face. She was unconscious, covered in a blanket with her head resting on a small airline pillow. Ressler gently touched her knee with his freezing right hand, before looking up at Red.

"What's wrong… with her?" He asked, trying not to shiver. The solid tension in his muscles was giving way a little to complete shivering now that he was out of the frigid cockpit.

"She took a blow to the back of the head, which is why she's still out. Her right wrist is badly bruised. I'm not sure if it's broken yet," Red explained, leaning over to her and moving her hair from her forehead. "This was the first hit she received. It's superficial. There was a lot of blood, but nothing serious. She most likely has a concussion…and I'm sure you yourself are extremely familiar with how those feel."

"But she'll…she'll be okay…? How do you know…that she will…" he asked Red, shivering uncontrollably now.

Red smiled sympathetically and looked at Ressler sitting in his wet clothing, his suit and light jacket being no match for the cold. "Because I've seen this before. But right now, we need to get you out of these wet clothes or you'll freeze."

"I'm f…fine," Ressler told him, reaching for the outline of Liz's hand under the fold of the blanket.

"Donald. Let's not play the 'I'm fine' game, shall we? We found a whole cabinet full of fashionable FBI clothing. You need to change into dry clothes. Freezing to death isn't going to help Lizzie, now is it?" he bargained with the agent, gambling that the mention of Liz would get him moving. And he was right.

Almost.

"We need to… look around outside… first," he stubbornly told Red, unable to stop his teeth chattering now. If he was already wet, why not go out and see where they were, he reasoned.

"It's pitch black out there and the snow is still falling. Listen to that wind. There is a massive blizzard out there that would guarantee frostbite in minutes. We cannot go out there right now. For now, we are confined to the cabin. We are indeed fortunate that the plane held together as well as she did and that we have shelter, or we'd all be dead by morning."

Shivering, Ressler replied, "We still need to… know."

"Agreed. But not tonight, we don't. For now, all you need to do is get into some dry clothes." He reached down to help haul the shivering agent out of the seat before he could argue more.

Ressler knew Red was right. He just felt useless stuck in a dark, cold tube. Looking at Liz again and inwardly willing her to be alright, he sighed in frustration. Shivering, he hobbled to the back of the plane where they'd found the clothing. In the phone light, he found some sturdy pants and a polo t-shirt that would fit, and a warmer FBI jacket. Gotta hand it to the Feds to be prepared, he thought as Red flicked the light off, handed his phone back to him and let Ressler get changed in relative privacy in the dark.

Getting out of wet clothes in the dark proved to be a challenge with only one arm that worked. And after gasping and struggling for a while, trying to be quiet every time he wrenched his shoulder, Red's voice came out of the darkness.

"Agent Ressler, I take it you are hurt..." he hesitated, but then decided against adding 'again'.

"Yeah…" Of course I am. "I'll be fine."

"Of course you will." Red's sarcastic yet concerned reply came to him in the dark.

And as Ressler finally got dressed and was pulling on the warm jacket, he stopped dead, remembering what he'd seen before the power had failed in the cockpit. Their heading was 74 degrees.

The bomb didn't go off. Why didn't it go off?!

Because it was never there to begin with, he reasoned, grimacing in the dark. None of this would have happened if he hadn't have let them change course.

"Damn it!" He turned his phone back on and lit up the area, seeing Red sitting across from Liz, peering in his direction with concern.

###

Having changed into dry clothes, Ressler immediately felt physically better despite the throbbing pain in his left shoulder. As long as he kept it still, it was bearable. He gingerly placed his left hand in the jacket pocket, using it as a makeshift sling. His hands were still frigid, and his legs were still slightly numb but his core was warmer now. As the shivers settled more, he walked unsteadily on feet that were still cold and leaned on the back of the seat Liz was in. She was still out cold, and that was worrying him immensely. Adjusting her blanket and tucking it around her more, he resisted the urge to cup her cheek in his cold hand, and turned to Red.

He might have been feeling better with being drier and warmer, but inwardly, he was fighting a losing battle to keep his anger under control. One of those wonderful side effects of Oxy he was learning to deal with each day. "We need to have a little…chat…with our friends at the front of the plane," he told Red guardedly.

Red nodded in return and got up from the seat, motioning for Dembe to stay with Liz. As they approached the two men, Campbell cried out in pain as he turned to see them heading back to them. Red sat across the aisle from Campbell, and Ressler sat across from Young, holding the phone so that all four of them were visible in its glow.

"I'm afraid we will probably have to reset your leg there, which is going to be extremely unpleasant and very painful," Red told Campbell, as Ressler felt a wave of déjà vu at his words. Good ole' Doctor Red. But that's where his sympathy ended for the moment. He didn't waste time on pleasantries and offers to help the men.

"There was never a bomb on this plane," Ressler stated, looking pointedly at Campbell.

Panting in pain, Campbell shook his head. Ressler didn't know if he was agreeing that there wasn't a bomb, or telling him he was wrong. He stuck to his original tack with the injured man.

"You played us. And your leg wouldn't be broken, and my partner wouldn't be lying unconscious back there. None of us would be in this position if we had not changed course," he told the man, gritting his teeth as he spoke, trying in vain to control the anger that he knew was rising.

Campbell looked at him, his eyes burning with pain. "Yes, there is a bomb," he panted.

Ressler raised his voice, leaning closer to Campbell. "I told you before that I didn't believe you, and then I got sucked into the whole charade. And now I'm telling you that again," he grimaced at the man. The facts spoke for themselves.

Young turned to him then, "I can assure you there was a bomb, because I placed it." He regarded Ressler with thinly veiled disdain.

Ressler sprang from his seat, grabbing at the man's shirt with his right hand, gritting his teeth. "How can that be?! We are sitting at 74 degrees here, way past your 32 or 42 degree threshold. And we're still here. Barely." He exhaled heavily, regarding the man in front of him, his jaw set firmly.

"My, my, don't we have a temper. I thought they trained FBI agents better than that," taunted Young.

"Donald…" said Red patiently. Ressler ignored him, still facing Young down.

"Have you seen my partner back there?! She wouldn't be that hurt if it weren't for you, pal," he shot at Young, who regarded him carefully, a slight smile playing about his mouth.

"And have you seen my partner? His leg is shattered. Life's a bitch sometimes."

Ressler was about to offer a strong retort, when Red interrupted him. "While all this male posturing is terribly exciting, and really, I'd give you both a ruler if I had one near, I'm far more interested in where you placed the bomb."

He smiled a little, trying to defuse Ressler. "Because if it hasn't gone off, then chances are that it was in a part of the plane that is no longer attached. That would be the logical explanation."

"The front wheel well," Young said, still staring at Ressler. Ressler roughly let go of his shirt and backed up from him, glaring at the man.

Young looked over to Red, "It's right underneath us."

Ressler remained silent, leaning against the icy cold cockpit door as a means to force himself to concentrate on something else, as Red continued.

"Tell me about this bomb. How was it constructed?" he looked from one to the other, offering each the chance to tell him.

Campbell spoke up again, fighting the pain, "It's a tube of…" but he couldn't finish as waves of pain radiated over him from his broken leg.

Young continued, "It's a cylinder of clear gel, with a couple of wires, a compass and a watch mechanism on it. I don't know the technicalities. It was given to us to place. I placed it."

Trying to control his breathing, Ressler eyed Red as he took in that information. He was coming to the same conclusion when Red voiced it.

"Gel. A liquid bomb," said Red, nodding to himself. He looked up from his musing and met Ressler's eyes. "Well there you have it Donald. The gel has frozen. That's why it hasn't detonated."

Leaning against the cockpit door, his back freezing, Ressler realized that in a sick twist of irony, the snowstorm that had brought them down had just saved their lives.

This just keeps getting better and better.

"Well great, so as soon as this blizzard stops and the outside temperature starts to rise, at some point the only shelter we have will explode." And if we can't move Liz… Ressler couldn't finish that thought.

"Damn it. And damn both of you!" Ressler flung at Young and Campbell. Gritting his teeth he pulled himself up off the cockpit door, wrenching his left shoulder as he did so and gasping at the pain. And leaving them all in darkness he hauled himself down to the back of the plane to sit with Liz.

###

Ressler was sitting across from Liz looking at her unconscious form, the anger still bubbling within him.

And as he looked at Liz, he could hear her voice in his mind telling him he seemed a little edgy. Yes mom… Oh God…

He didn't look at Red as he sat down across from them. Seemingly unable to sit silently, Red spoke up. "I understand why you're angry at this situation. But Donald, anger really isn't going to help."

He waited for Ressler to reply and when he didn't, he continued. "But if we are to get out of here, or at least survey our situation when daylight comes, we may need to pool the resources of every one us on board, including our friends at the front."

Ressler dropped his eyes from Liz and sighed.

"Donald, we will need their cooperation."

Are you gonna cooperate? Please say no... And as he heard Liz again saying that he seemed a little edgy, for one insane moment he actually envied Red and his ability to remain calm in every situation and see allies in everything.

Seeing that Ressler wasn't going to talk about that, Red changed the subject. "How bad is your shoulder," he continued, in a softer tone, "You're favoring it and it's clearly in pain."

"I don't know," Ressler said truthfully. And it didn't matter, he thought, not when Liz was…down.

"Okay." Red wasn't going to push the point. "We looked for a First Aid Kit earlier and couldn't find one. Which seems strange, the way you Feds like to outfit your transportation for all contingencies."

"It's in the cockpit," he told Red. Having spent a fair bit of time in there during the flight, he had seen the Red Cross on one of the lower cabinets. And as he said it, the thought of going back in there in the vicinity of the dead pilot was not something he relished. But he'd do it to help Liz. He exhaled, pulled himself together, and rose from his seat.

"I'll go get it," he said and didn't wait for an answer. If it would help Liz, he'd find it. And Red sat back in his chair, pleased to have got Donald moving onto something positive.

As Ressler walked past Young and Campbell, he didn't say anything. But Campbell spoke up, and seemed to be a little more coherent.

"Hey, Fed. No hard feelings. I heard what Reddington said back there, bits of it. And he's right. So in the spirit of cooperation, if I can help, even with a banged up leg and ribs, I will.

Oh, I think you've helped more than enough already.

And Liz's voice was immediately in his head. You seem a little edgy. He stopped and looked back at Campbell. "Sure. Thanks." He didn't know if he meant that or not though. But he'd said it for Liz.

When he leaned against the cockpit door with his right shoulder, he took in a deep breath. Releasing the handle he stepped into the frigid cockpit and closed the door quickly behind him in the frigid cold space. Deliberately averting his light from the pilot's seat and its impaled contents, he kneeled down to the lower cabinets behind the seats. Finding the one he needed and hoping it wasn't locked, he pulled on the handle. Thankfully it opened and he quickly found what he was looking for.

With the white First Aid Kit in his hand, he was about to rise when his brain started yelling at him. Taking a shuddering breath, he stopped. Hesitating a moment, he closed his eyes. No! And unable to stop himself he then flipped the catch on the First Aid Kit to open it. He didn't know why. He didn't want to. But he did it anyway. He looked through it for pain pills.

Damn it. Don't!

And when he found them, he could have screamed. They were OxyContin. 4 foil sheets of 8 pills on each. No no no no…Close the lid. Close it. Close it.

And he did close it. But not before he'd taken a sheet of 8 OxyContin pills and shoved them in his right pocket. What are you doing?! Don't!

With the other three sheets of Oxy buried at the bottom of the First Aid Kit, he stood up, First Aid Kit in hand and fled from the cockpit.

###

If Red noticed a change in Ressler when he headed back to sit across from Liz, he kept it to himself. After handing the First Aid Kit to Red, and taking the blanket Red handed him he sat silently. Adjusting Liz's blanket and feeling her cheek to see if she was too cold (after rubbing his hands to warm them) he focused on her so that Red wouldn't focus on him.

The pills were almost burning a hole in his pocket, he was that acutely aware of them. I am Special Agent Donald Ressler, and I am NOT a junkie.

Keep telling yourself that. Because from where I'm sitting…

He wanted to shake Liz awake. To make her respond. To see her open her eyes and smile at him in that calming way she had. To make her laugh in the way she had at his 'I was amazing' comment. To make her look at him in the way she had when telling him 'It was' when faced with the terrifying prospect of living without him… Because all he could think when he looked at her laying there was the fear that he might be facing that prospect.

Leaning on the armrest with his right elbow, he rested his head in his hand, kneading his forehead with his knuckles against the pain behind his eyes. Trying to ease the tension. Trying to quell the screaming in his brain.

I'm not amazing. They're in my pocket again.

I'm not amazing without you Liz…