Happy New Year! Or almost anyway. I have a few hours to go. See? I told you I'd have it out by this week! Thanks to everyone who reviewed and motivated me. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.


Something was dripping on his face. Illya really wished that Waverly had been able to find them a better room for this mission, if the roof was leaking. Something else was cutting into his neck and chest, growing more uncomfortable by the second. He opened his eyes.

He wasn't in a hotel room. He was in a small airplane, but something was wrong. Illya didn't think that normal planes had tree limbs coming through the front window. He shook his head, trying to clear it, but it only increased the pounding. He raised a hand to his forehead, feeling wetness there. He was bleeding from a cut above his left eye, but it didn't seem to be too bad. It explained the dripping, at least.

The situation was coming back to him now. The three of them had been on a mission in Switzerland, retrieving yet another computer disc filled with compromising information (he was really starting to hate those things). The mission, for once, had gone well. He and Napoleon had gotten in and out without alerting anyone to their presence, while Gaby had stayed at the ski lodge serving as their base, patched into the security cameras and directing them. Napoleon had remarked that the most dangerous part of the mission was riding in the untrustworthy plane that was to ferry them to and from their drop-off point. Apparently, he had been right.

Illya fumbled with the straps holding him in place. It took him a minute to depress the buckle in the right place, but he got it eventually. He went to stand, but the metal groaned and the floor shifted under his feet. He froze. The plane settled again. He risked leaning to one side to peer out of a side window.

The plane wasn't on the ground. If they were still flying, that wouldn't be a problem, but they weren't and the plane wasn't on the ground. Illya took a deep breath. He had hated this rickety metal contraption from the moment he laid eyes on it, but this was ridiculous. He released his breath. The first step was to get on the ground, and possibly never on a plane again.

Another look out the window showed him that the plane was wedged in between two tall fir trees. They were close enough together that the trunks had hit the wings, and the body of the plane was cradled on some thick boughs. It wasn't particularly stable, but Illya didn't think that he was in immediate danger of plummeting to his death.

The second problem was that it was too quiet. Where was Napoleon? He had been in the front with the pilot. Illya slowly shifted his weight and pulled himself forward.

The pilot was dead. That was immediately evident. He had been impaled by one of the same tree limbs that had saved them from hitting the forest floor. His eyes were open and glazed over. Illya wondered if he had even realized what was happening. Napoleon wasn't in the passenger seat, but the straps weren't torn. They looked like they'd never been buckled in the first place.

"Idiotic American," Illya muttered in Russian, even though, with all the glass shards and branches in the cockpit it had probably saved his life. Illya hoped he hadn't broken his neck. The shattered windshield offered a good escape route for Illya. He very, very carefully climbed out through the gap after using one of the branches to remove as much of the glass as possible. It was relatively simple after that to get a good grip on the tree trunk and climb out of the plane.

The fir tree had plenty of closely spaced branches that made it easy to climb down. He hit the snowy ground with a thump. It had been snowing recently, and the drifts came up over the tops of his boots. If they were here for any length of time he was going to have to figure out some sort of shelter. Speaking of "we"...

"Solo!" He called. No answer. He turned in a slow circle, then craned his neck to look up at the suspended plane. It was about twenty feet off the ground. The cockpit was facing east, so if someone had been thrown out of it, it would be over that way. He struggled through increasingly tall piles of snow, making slow progress east.

In the end, Illya found Napoleon by tripping over him. His foot made contact with something solid instead of the soft snow he was expecting, and he fell forward with an explosive burst of air and flailing arms. Illya sat up, disgruntled, and looked to see what had caused his fall.

"Of course it's you," he grumbled out loud, "You are always getting under my feet." Unfortunately, Napoleon was not conscious to hear his joke. He probably wouldn't have appreciated it anyway, Illya thought as he moved to check his partner's pulse. It was slower than he would've liked, but steady and strong. He was pale, but that could have been due to the cold. Illya checked him over, but didn't find any apparent broken bones or gaping wounds. Besides numerous cuts-probably from the glass-and a large contusion and cut at his hair line that looked as if it had stopped bleeding a while ago, he seemed alright. If that wasn't the case, he'd have to tell the Russian so when he woke up. The deep snow that had cushioned his fall had probably saved his life.

Illya sat back on his heels and considered. The two of them were mostly in one piece, but they had a few problems. Hopefully Gaby had informed Waverly the moment she lost radio contact with the plane or when it failed to appear at the appointed time and place. That meant there should be someone looking for them. Illya was suddenly very grateful that he hadn't given in to her pouting and let her come along. Then all three of them would have been in a bigger mess. As it was, it could take hours before a rescue happened.

His main concerns were shelter and warmth. It was late afternoon, and night would fall soon. The temperature would drop quickly after that, especially this high up in the mountains. He was going to have to find a way to keep the two of them warm.

Illya considered. He could scavenge supplies from the airplane, but he might as well use what was available to him naturally as well. Looking around, he spied a fir tree that met his requirements-thick boughs, reaching all the way to the ground. He'd have to make some modifications, but it would do.

He tapped the side of Napoleon's face.

"Cowboy. Wake up." He was rewarded with a groan. "Come on, pull yourself together." Blue eyes squinted up at him.

"Illya?" Napoleon frowned, then winced. "What happened to the bus that hit me?" Illya snorted.

"Try airplane. And for the record, you were right about it-piece of junk." Napoleon stared at him.

"Did you just say I was right about something? I must be dead." The Russian rolled his eyes.

"Enough joking. We need to get out of the open." He pulled his partner into a sitting position. "Do you think you can walk?" It took a beat too long for Napoleon to register his question.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just give me a hand up."

Illya stood up and held out his hand. Napoleon reached up and hauled himself up, but overbalanced and fell into him. Illya put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

"Fine. Right."

Napoleon looked like he was trying not to throw up. It took him a few seconds to pull himself together. He looked around, confused.

"Where's the plane?"

Illya pointed. Napoleon followed his hand to their plane, still suspended in the trees. He frowned.

"Why is it up there, and we're down here?" If Illya weren't worried about how long it was taking him to process things, he would have laughed.

"I climbed. You fell. It's not important now. Come on," he said, tugging Napoleon's arm towards the tree he had chosen.

The tree was exactly what they needed. On the outside it appeared impenetrable, but the thick needles actually ended several feet from the trunk, leaving a relatively open space with no snow on the ground. They would be able to build a small fire, and the space would stay warm enough to survive until Gaby and Waverly found them. He glanced at his partner, who was using one of the thicker base branches to stay upright. He had a feeling he was going to have to do most of it, but it wasn't Napoleon's fault. Illya suspected that he had a nasty concussion. He wasn't going to be much help.

"Stay here," he told the American, who didn't look like he was going much of anywhere.

"Where're you going?" Napoleon asked, blinking at him.

"To get some supplies. I'll be back soon."

"'Kay."

Illya pushed back out into the open and surveyed the scene. There was a lot of small debris littering the ground under the trees where the plane was trapped, but it wasn't anything useful. Their bags were probably-hopefully-still in the plane. If he was lucky there might even be some emergency supplies that the pilot kept on hand. Although, if the plane had been any indication, he was doubtful on that front.

The only way to get at the plane was to climb the tree. It wouldn't be as easy as coming down had been, but the closely spaced, thick branches would be just as helpful coming up as they were going down.

Reaching the plane, as he'd suspected, wasn't the hard part. The hard part was going to be reaching the supplies without sending the pane-and himself-plummeting the rest of the way to the ground.

The open side of the plane was close enough to the trunk that he could step over into it. He did so, cautiously. Besides some nerve-wracking creaking, nothing happened. He wasn't going to hold his breath over its stability, though. His and Napoleon's packs were nestled behind the passenger seats, and easy to get to. He hooked them over a branch outside the plane.

He looked around the inside of the plane for any sign of emergency supplies, but nothing was forthcoming, and he didn't want to risk displacing the plane by moving around too much. The only things he saw that might be of use were a yellow tarp and some blankets.

Climbing back out onto the tree, he threw the packs down one at a time, trying to aim at the deeper drifts. He just hoped that nothing important had broken, either in the crash or the fall to the ground. Then he made his own-slower-way to the ground.

Napoleon hadn't moved much from where he had left him, except that he was now sitting on the ground with his back to the tree trunk. His eyes were closed, but they opened when Illya came through the branches carrying the blankets and both of their packs.

"Successful hunting?" The American guessed. Illya noted with some relief that he sounded better than he had before.

"You could say that," Illya said. "I found a tarp, too. We can hang it over the branches for more insulation." Napoleon nodded, reaching out to grab his pack from lllya.

"Check and see if your radio survived," Illya told him.

"Even if it did, these are for short range transmission between you and me if we got separated," Napoleon said, looking up at him. "We won't be able to reach Gaby with them."

"I know," Illya said, "but if there's anyone living out here we might be able to reach them. I'd take a cabin over a tree any night." He left Napoleon rummaging through his belongings and went to get the tarp. While outside, he kicked around, trying to find some rocks. The snow made it almost impossible, but he found four or five fist sized chunks of stone in the shallow snow beneath a younger fir tree. He put them, along with some of the smaller downed branches from their wreck on the tarp and hauled it into their space in the tree.

Napoleon looked up from where he was sorting out supplies.

"My radio is busted. Yours still works, but I can't raise anyone on it." He looked up and winced. "You couldn't find something in a less offensive color?" Illya looked at the tarp and huffed.

"Let me just tell the pilot to pack something in a better color next time. No, Solo, this was all I could find."

"The pilot," Napoleon started hesitantly, "Is he…?"

"Dead," Illya told him gruffly, "Probably the moment we crashed. There's nothing we could have done."

"Oh."

Illya glanced at him when he looked back down at the supplies. He was obviously bothered by the pilot's death-they'd been chatting up a storm during the flight. He suspected the concussion wasn't doing him any favors either.

"What about the matches? Did they make it?" Illya asked after a moment.

"Both packs. If nothing else, we can set things on fire," Napoleon said. He put one pack of matches in Illya's outstretched hand. Illya began to set up a small fire pit after clearing a space of fallen pine needles and other forest debris. The rocks went in a circle, and some of the smaller branches he'd brought in were broken up for tinder.

He prodded Napoleon into helping him get the tarp over some branches above them to make a sort of roof. If nothing else, it would keep snow from falling on their heads. Then he kindled the fire. It took two matches to get the little bundle of pine needles wrapped in a strip of gauze from their emergency medical kit to light, but it finally caught. The broken up branches went shortly after that. It only took a little bit for the small space around the tree trunk to start feeling warmer. Illya was grateful-the sun would be down in less than a hour.

The branches he was burning were, unfortunately, not dried out and produced more smoke than was comfortable, but the fire was small enough that a hole cut in the tarp above it vented most of the smoke.

Napoleon hadn't gotten any chattier as time passed. Illya could tell that he was hurting, but that was to be expected. He was probably covered in bruises, and the cut on his head had to be painful. It was a miracle neither of them had any broken bones. Currently, the American was sitting under the tarp, leaning against the trunk of the fir.

"You okay, Cowboy?" Napoleon looked up.

"Nothing a week of sleep wouldn't cure. What about you? You look like you've done three rounds with an angry bear."

"More like a couple of trees," Illya snorted. "Nothing so exciting as a bear."

"The point stands. Come over here and let me look at that cut on your face."

"Fine. As long as you let me look at your head after that." It was telling that Napoleon didn't even really try to argue.

Illya winced as Napoleon probed the cut above his eye.

"It doesn't look too bad. Probably won't even scar," the American told him.

"I could have told you that," Illya grumbled. It still hurt. "My turn."

Napoleon leaned his head back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes as Illya explored the wound. It was worse than his own, but not life-threatening. The blood had clotted, and he didn't want to start the bleeding again in order to stitch it up. If Gaby wasn't there by tomorrow, maybe, but it would be alright for the night.

"You'll live," he told the other man. "It's not like your brains weren't already scrambled." Napoleon huffed a laugh at that. He took it as a good sign. "All the same, no sleeping."

"Wonderful," Napoleon groaned. "The cherry on top of a terrible day."

"Wasn't my idea to crash the plane," Illya said.

"I don't think it was anyone's idea. Why did we crash anyway?" His partner asked, opening his eyes again.

"You don't remember?" Illya asked him.

"Not really."

"Some sort of engine failure, I think. Other than that I'm not sure, and I don't care enough to climb up again and try to find out."

Napoleon hummed his agreement.

They spent the next several hours taking turns keeping one another awake. Illya, always prepared, had some ration packs with him, and they warmed those up over the fire and ate them. The Russian was surprised when Napoleon didn't voice a complaint over the food.

"Not what you're used to, is it?" He asked. Napoleon shrugged.

"I've had worse. You can't get much lower than prison food." Illya glanced over at him to gauge his reaction. Sometimes he forgot that his partner had been recruited out of prison. He didn't seem to be bothered by talking about it.

"I guess not," Illya ventured. "We ate these all the time during training."

"Lots of survival courses in the dead of winter?" Napoleon asked.

"It's almost always winter in some parts of Russia," Illya said, "so you could say that."

"I always liked camping," the American offered. "Of course, there's a right way and a wrong way to do everything, and this" he waved a hand at their impromptu tent, "is the wrong way."

"Well, it's not like we had much of a choice," Illya grunted, "but maybe next time we should pack a tent. Just in case."

"I'm not getting on any more planes that look like garbage barges, so the point should be moot."

Illya was already trying to figure out how to include a tent in his gear. It might take some work. A question occurred to him.

"Did you camp much?"

Napoleon didn't answer right away. Illya was going to let it slide-after all, there were parts of his life that he didn't want to discuss-when the other man spoke.

"We camped a lot, especially during the summer. Usually me and my dad, but sometimes I went alone. We owned plenty of acreage, so I could roam where I wanted. The stars were always incredible. You can't see those in big cities." He looked up, almost reflexively, but Illya knew the tarp and the tree branches would be blocking any sign of the sky.

"The stars are nice in the wilderness," Illya said quietly. He was rewarded with a genuine smile from Napoleon-not one of the fake ones that the American used to con people or get his way, or the smirk that was so infuriating, but an actual smile. His memories of home must be as special to him as Illya's were.

They sat in companionable silence as the night wore on around them.


The sound of a vehicle woke Illya. Or it could have been Gaby shouting over the radio. Either way, he was abruptly wide awake. Beside him, Napoleon blinked at the bright sunlight that filtered through the tree branches.

"Sounds like our ride's here," he remarked. Illya grunted in agreement. The fire was still flickering softly. He had fed it broken branches throughout the night.

"Illya," squawked the radio, "if you don't answer, so help me I'll bring you back to life and murder you myself. I didn't spend all night looking for you just to-" he could hear her actual voice echoing the radio close by.

Illya pushed through the branches and needles, shielding his eyes from the reflected sunlight with his hand.

"Gaby!" he called, "We are here. Stop yelling." She whirled around and stomped over to him.

"Finally! Where's Napoleon? I want to go. It's freezing." She looked like a tiny, angry cat, all bundled up in multiple layers and a coat with fur around the collar. Waverly stood by the two ATVs they had apparently used to get to them. It was their engines that Illya had heard.

"I'm right here." Napoleon stuck his head out from the tree. There were fir needles in his hair. Illya decided not to point it out.

"You boys alright?" asked Waverly. he'd moved from his position to stand next to them.

"Nothing a week of sleep would not fix," Illya told him. Napoleon smirked.

"What about the pilot?" Asked Waverly.

"Didn't make it," Illya told him.

The four of them looked up to the plane. It hadn't gone anywhere overnight.

"I'll have a team take care of it," Waverly said. "For now, Gaby's right-let's get somewhere warm, shall we?"

They turned and headed for the vehicles.

"Cowboy," Illya said.

"Hmm?"

"Let's not go camping again with no tent."

Napoleon laughed.