AN: I apologize for the delay, but things should be back to normal now. I love part of this chapter, and hate part of it. Regardless, I hope you guys like the whole thing lol. Enjoy, and please leave a review :)

JT awoke to a ringing in his ears and a pounding behind his eyes. He squeezed them shut even tighter, letting out a soft groan. But he was in pain, which meant he was alive. His eyes shot open. Bright needed to be alive too. JT couldn't survive while the kid died. That just wasn't an option.

He forced himself to straighten up and undid the seat belt. A quick check of his body revealed no major injuries, aside from feeling sore all over and the pounding in his head. The cockpit had fared much better than JT would have expected, but the smell of smoke in the air urged JT to get himself and Bright out as quickly as possible. He turned in his seat with a groan, the movement reminding him that plane crashes left one sore even without obvious injuries, and saw Bright still in the jump seat, just coming around himself.

Bright grimaced and let out a small whimper that broke JT's heart much more than it should have. There was a light trickle of blood pouring down the side of the kid's face from a cut at his hairline, and JT wouldn't have been surprised if Bright had some broken ribs, due to the way the side of the plane right next to Bright had caved slightly inwards and left broken, jagged pieces protruding. It had certainly caved in against the kid.

"You okay, dude?" JT asked him as he forced himself to stand. They still needed to get out of the plane. In movies, the plane usually exploded not long after a crash, and JT didn't know the science well enough to be sure that wouldn't happen.

Bright groaned, his eyes still shut tight, but nodded. He undid his own seatbelt and stood up with a gasp of pain, his hand immediately going to his side.

"Bright?" JT shot up, ignoring his own aching muscles, and stepped over the body of Stover to get to the kid. "You good?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Bright responded around another groan. He pulled his hand from his side, and sighed at the blood that covered it. The jagged edges of the most damaged side of the plane had caused more damage to Bright than JT had first thought. "I've had worse," Bright said, flashing a smile that JT knew was fake.

"We gotta go," JT reminded him as more smoke wafted through into the cockpit above their heads. The back of the plane was on fire. He took a light hold of the back of Bright's suit, just to steady him and make sure the kid didn't collapse or anything, and led him to the main emergency door. "This thing better open," JT muttered in reference to it. He took a quick glance behind him to make sure the kid was still standing, then turned his attention back to the door. JT took a firm grip of the handle, then pulled it down, and pushed on the door with a grunt. It gave way, but only slightly, as if something were blocking its path. "Can you see something in the way?" he asked Bright through heavy breaths as he continued to push.

Bright stood on his toes to get a good look out the window. JT didn't miss the kid's grimace or the way he gripped his ribs, but chose to ignore it until they were at least off the plane.

"Yeah, there's a downed tree, or something," Bright said, coming back down to rest flat on his feet. "Maybe just a big log."

"A big log?" JT parroted in disbelief. Bright just shrugged his shoulders and looked at him with helpless frustration. JT shook his head, then went back to pushing on the door. Bright joined him, pushing with all of his strength, despite the pain that JT could tell he was in.

A minute later, the door had opened slightly more due to their brute strength, but it wasn't going to be enough. The plane was quickly filling with smoke, and JT and Bright didn't have anywhere to go.

"I think I can slip through if you can hold it open long enough," Bright said, looking down at the small opening they had painstakingly created. JT glanced down at it. There was no way he himself would fit through, but maybe Bright could - if he did, JT would never make fun of him for being small ever again. "Then I can pull from the other side, or try to get the tree away," he continued.

"Alright bro, go for it," JT replied. He groaned against the door as he put all of his might into widening that tiny opening. The kid getting out through it and then being able to get the door open from the outside was JT's only chance at survival. This needed to work. At the very least, the kid needed to get out and get home. If something happened to Bright, JT didn't want to face Gil. He couldn't face the man if he let anything happen to his son.

"Just a little further," Bright grunted, pushing against the door as well until the gap was just a little wider.

JT kept pushing against the door as Bright began to force himself through the small opening. He was able to get just less than half his body through before it became clear that the door needed to open just a little bit more. They were both beginning to cough from smoke inhalation, but there was nothing they could use to breathe through. The kid kept trying to push himself through anyway, with a great deal of pain. JT could hear whimpers mixed in with Bright's groans of exertion. A quick glance showed the bloodstain on Bright's white shirt growing larger, but JT couldn't stop. The heat from the fire at the back of the plane was growing closer, and the smoke was beginning to impact his breathing. They didn't have much time.

"I'm almost there," Bright said, a hitch in his breath, his pain apparent as he tried to squeeze through a space too small for him whilst injured. Another small cry of pain, and Bright was gone. JT looked to the side, and saw only the gap. Only a few moments later, and the door was swinging open quickly enough that JT almost fell right out of the plane. He quickly regained his footing, then hopped to the ground a few feet below, thankful it wasn't a long fall. A few yards away lay a log, which JT assumed had previously been blocking the door from opening.

"And you moved that all by yourself?" JT curiously asked the smaller man with a smile. He knew the kid was a lot stronger than his small size would have people believe, but it was still a whole log.

Bright grinned. "It's really just simple physics, with where the log was stuck and the direction that force needed to be applied in order to move it," he said with a wave of a hand. The kid's other hand was held against his ribs, staunching the flow of blood.

"Let's get away in case that thing blows, then figure out what our next move is," JT suggested, then waited to start walking further into the trees until Bright did. The kid was more injured from the crash than JT was, so he needed to keep an eye on him.

He took a few deep breaths of the clean air he was breathing, grateful to clear the smoke from his lungs.

They'd crash landed in the middle of a forest. JT figured it was the dense foliage of the trees that had slowed the crash itself and saved them from certain death. He couldn't exactly get a good look at anything that would definitively tell him, but JT guessed they were in the upper Appalachians. That would seem most believable if the people who were after Bright had wanted to make it look like an accident. The Appalachians were at least sort of on their supposed flight plan.

JT turned his attention back to the target of the attack - at least, who they were assuming was the target. Bright was still holding a hand to his side, but the bloodstain didn't appear to have grown any larger since JT last saw it. Still, JT needed to see how bad it was, even if there wasn't anything he could do about it - he certainly couldn't do anything about his own concussion.

"We can stop here, at least for a bit," JT said. He took another quick look around, making sure that they truly were alone, then sat down on a fallen log. He gave the log a pat and gestured for Bright to join him. The kid nodded and slowly trotted over to his side, sitting down with a wince. "How bad?" JT asked, despite knowing that Bright was going to lie to him.

"It's nothing, I'm fine," he immediately replied. JT nodded. At least he'd been right.

"Then you won't have any problem showin' me what's causin' all that blood, then, will ya?" he confirmed.

Bright opened his mouth to answer, then sighed instead, seemingly realizing the pointlessness of putting up any more of a fight on the issue when it was clear that JT wasn't going to let it go. The kid rolled his eyes and nodded, the little drama queen he was.

"Fine," he muttered, sounding like a teenager who didn't want to clean his room. JT had perfected the same syllable himself at that age.

Gritting his teeth, Bright straightened up and began to undo the buttons of his torn dress shirt, exposing his pale skin. He pulled his hand away and the fabric aside, showing JT the gash that ran along his ribs.

"It's really not that bad, I swear," Bright said, almost pleading. It sounded like he was scared that JT wouldn't believe him, that if it actually was bad, JT would be mad at him. JT knew that the kid was pretty messed up in the head from all the trauma he'd been through, but he still didn't understand all of his idiosyncrasies or why he did certain things. He insisted that he didn't want to understand, but if JT were being honest with himself, he wanted to know much more than he led on. Somehow, the kid he had once found obnoxious was worming his way into JT's heart. Soon enough, JT was going to be just as much a victim to Bright's charm as the rest of the team was. If Dani ever found out, JT would be doomed.

"It doesn't look like it's bleeding anymore," JT admitted. "But we don't know how long we're gonna be out here. We should find some way to wrap it."

Bright gave him a look filled with doubt. "With what? It's not exactly small, or in an easy place to wrap," he said with a shake of his head.

JT sighed. The kid was right. The gash was pretty much directly along his ribs, traveling diagonally across his side. It wasn't very long, but it was long enough that the only way to wrap it would be to wrap something around Bright's entire torso. It just wasn't going to work.

"What about your head?" Bright asked, ducking his head a bit to catch JT's gaze. "I know you've got a concussion."

"What about yours?" JT defensively fired back. "You're the one with the blood." He gestured to his own hairline, pointing out that he didn't have a bleeding wound there, while Bright did.

"Oh, so I have to be forthcoming with my injuries, but you get to pretend that yours don't exist?" Bright shot back, actually looking a little bit angry. Of course, Bright being angry at JT was like a puppy being angry at a bear. He just couldn't take it seriously. Still, the kid's claim was fair enough.

"There's nothin' we can do about it here," JT admitted. "Besides, I got worse concussions in high school playing football. I'll be fine." He gestured again to the dried blood along the side of the kid's face.

"This isn't even a concussion," Bright replied with a noncommittal shake of his head. "It's shallow. Head wounds just bleed a lot."

JT looked over it as much as he could without physically searching through Bright's hair - something Gil would've done, but JT wasn't there yet - and decided that it had stopped bleeding, and thus there was nothing else they could do about it.

The next matter of business was getting out of the situation they'd found themselves in. There was no telling where they were, and it could be a while yet before anyone realized they were missing. At least, Gil hadn't instructed JT to check in at all, but perhaps he'd told Bright to. The kid was a son to the man, after all, so he'd probably want to know that his boy made it to DC safely.

"You tell Gil you were gonna check in with him once we landed?" JT asked.

"Not specifically, but I always do," Bright said. "If I don't, he'll call me a few hours later, and when I don't respond, he's going to know that something's wrong," Bright assured him. JT didn't bother pointing out just how much of a dad the man was. This time, he was especially grateful for it. Those fatherly instincts that Gil had for Bright would likely be what would save their lives. Staying alive long enough for Gil to know that something was wrong was one thing. Staying alive long enough for help to actually reach them was another thing entirely. JT would do everything in his power to get the two of them out of it themselves, but there was only so much they could do when all they had at their disposal were two dying phones that didn't have any signal, no reference for where they were, a single handgun, and the clothes on their backs.

"Sun won't set for another six hours at least," JT pointed out. "But this deep in the forest, it'll get dark faster, especially with those clouds. We gotta use as much of this daylight as we can." He pushed himself up and off the log they were sitting on, and a wave of dizziness hit him like a left tackle, with a moment of nausea as an added bonus. JT groaned and put a hand back on the long to steady himself.

"JT?" Bright called out as he quickly stood and reached out to steady the man.

"Stop touchin' me, I'm fine," JT insisted with a wave of his hand. Bright obediently drew back, his eyebrows drawn together in a mixture of hurt and concern. JT sighed. He hadn't meant to hurt the kid, especially when Bright had truly been only trying to help. "I'm okay," he repeated, ducking his head to catch Bright's gaze. He offered the kid an apologetic smile and moved away from the log once more, the wave of dizziness passed. "We gotta get movin'."

"Which way?" Bright asked, gesturing around them with an air of hopelessness. The kid was scared, and he had every right to be. When the bad guys came looking to see if the job was done, they'd be looking to that spot, so JT and Bright had to get away. They had to run, but run where? There was no telling which direction would take them deeper into the forest, and which would lead them to civilization. They were surrounded by 365 degrees of an impossible choice. "Can you even tell which way is east with all of this tree cover?"

"I can make an educated guess." JT stepped back and looked up, ignoring another wave of dizziness. He took in everything he could, and made a guess. That was all he could do. He pointed towards the direction he hoped was east, and the two started walking. East was towards the sea - assuming they were still on the east side of the Appalachians, since JT just couldn't imagine the opposite possibly being true - meaning towards civilization. "Your dad took you camping, right? Can't you make a guess?" he asked, not expecting a real answer.

"Yeah, uh, that's not exactly the kind of thing we did on that camping trip," Bright muttered in reply.

JT cringed, his imagination running wild with all of the terrible things that could have gone down on that trip. He had so many questions concerning it, and about Bright's childhood in general, both pre and post the kid's father getting arrested, but he refrained from asking a single one. Not only did JT want to avoid anything that could be conceivably seen as a bonding moment, he was also afraid of the answers he could receive. They could be so disturbing that JT would feel sick, cause him to feel more empathetic towards Bright than he wanted to, or be so normal that JT would only be left with more questions.

Still, part of JT, like a persistent nudge at his side, told him that he shouldn't just remain silent and let the kid think about that traumatic trip, which he was undoubtedly doing. With a roll of his eyes at his own conscience, JT cleared his throat to speak.

"I could teach you," he said, although it came out as somewhat of a grumble. JT heard Bright stop behind him.

"What?" the kid asked, as though stunned that JT would even suggest that.

"Yeah, I know all this survival stuff, and clearly you need to know it," he said, gesturing around to their current situation as he continued to walk. The crackle of leaves behind him informed JT that Bright was once again following. JT slowed down, just a bit, to give the kid a chance to catch up. They couldn't afford to even risk getting separated. "So I may as well," he finished. JT shrugged, as if his suggestion had been simply a casual thing, to lighten any emotion that may have crept in.

"Will what you know help us stay dry when the sky opens up?" Bright asked him, a sense of foreboding in his voice.

JT glanced up at the clouds and grimaced, both at their dark gray color and the way everything spun just a bit when he moved too quickly. The storm was coming, and by the looks of it, they didn't have much time.

"Clouds that dark, this much humidity in the air..." he trailed off for a moment as he realized that magnitude of the oncoming storm. "What I learned in Afghanistan won't help us much," he admitted. They needed to find some form of shelter, and quick. "We gotta keep going," he said, picking up the pace a bit. It would be just their luck to have to deal with a serious thunderstorm on top of everything else.

But without bad luck, Bright wouldn't have any luck at all.