Author's Note: Thank you to all of my readers that stuck with me through my hiatus and for those that took a few minutes to review! You guys/gals rock! I couldn't make you wait too long so here's the next chapter. Enjoy!
Hotch glanced down at his watch for what seemed like the hundredth time and frowned before resuming his pacing. Prentiss and Garcia watched him nervously from the small table across the room. Rossi had called to let them know they were taking off almost two hours ago, and they still hadn't landed.
"Hotch, man, I'm sure they'll get here anytime," Morgan offered, "they probably just got delayed and taking them longer with the snow."
"Yeah. If anything happened to them, someone would let us know," Garcia added, "I mean, they have contact with the pilot and would let us know, right?"
Garcia looked from Hotch's stoic face to Emily, eyes pleading for reassurance. Emily forced a small smile and nodded despite her gut twisting with worry. The storm was heading toward them which meant the wind should have been at their back, making them travel faster. They should have arrived an hour ago. Already the much larger airport had all but shut down, grounding all incoming and outgoing flights and resorting to a skeleton crew. The Operations Director had given them full access to a small, one room building located right off the tarmac, which was usually used for part storage. They'd used it as an office of sorts, setting up Garcia's computers and regrouping between interviews. Now it was their sanctuary from the storm while they waited for the arrival of the rest of their team.
Morgan fiddled with the noisy wall heater, adjusting the knob and frowning when it came off in his fingers. Like everything else in the airport, the machine was ancient, and made the entire room smell of burning dust each time it spouted semi warm air into the room. He shook his head and replaced the knob over the bare screw and moved to lean against the wall.
"Maybe they had to turn back or got diverted," he suggested.
"They should have told me if that were the case," Hotch finally spoke.
Hotch paced the length of the room a few more times before he sighed and pulled his phone from his pocket. Before he could dial the numbers, the door few open and the wind blew in a young, scraggly looking blond man in a yellow vest.
"Agent Hotchner?" he asked after pulling his scarf from his around his mouth.
"Yes?" Hotch cocked his head curiously at the intruder.
"They need you in flight control."
"Why? What happened?" he asked, already moving with the rest of the team hot on his heels.
"Problems with the plane your friends were on," he answered, pulling the door open, "I don't know any details."
Hotch clenched his jaw, barely noticing that the snow was coming down harder as they quickly moved across the tarmac to the flight control building. The moment they entered the office, a burly man in his fifties, with a gut that hung over the front of his pants met his eyes and joined them near the door.
"What happened?" Hotch demanded before he could speak, "Where is the rest of my team?"
The man shifted nervously under Hotch's glare, "We got a transmission from the pilot about a bird strike awhile ago. He said they were suffering mechanical failure and he needed to make an emergency landing."
"Where did they land?" Hotch asked.
The man let out a deep sigh, "We don't know. We lost contact with them shortly after that. We've been trying to narrow down their location from the last coordinates we received from the pilot. We've narrowed it down to about a six mile radius. That's assuming they weren't still in the air when we lost contact."
The agents followed him to a large map on the wall and studied the area he pointed to while he spoke. Hotch scowled at the empty space he referred to.
"What's there to protect them from the storm once they've landed?" Emily asked suspiciously.
"That's the problem," his eyes went to the floor, "This area is a steep mountain zone. There's nowhere to land."
"Are you saying they crashed?" Morgan stepped in closer, "you knew this for an hour and you're just now telling us?"
"We have procedures Agent Morgan. We had to narrow down the search area and contact search and rescue operations. These things take time."
"Time that our friends may, or may not have!" Morgan shouted.
Hotch ignored Morgan's outburst, "How long before the search team can reach them?"
The man shifted again, "They uh, they can't go until the storm's passed."
"What?" it was Emily that broke the silence this time, "that could be days!"
"I'm sorry. They're just not willing to risk the safety of their team. You don't know these mountains Agents. They're no walk in the park in the best weather."
"I don't care!" Emily pointed toward the fogged window, "We have three federal agents out there that might still be alive. The longer we stay down here, their chances of staying that way drop."
"My hands are tied," he apologized, "if there were some way I could change their minds I would. But without any communication or signs telling us anyone survived, they just can't risk a rescue mission."
"So we go out there ourselves," Morgan suggested, "the storm isn't that bad out there yet. We could take a chopper and fly the area; see if we can find any signs of the plane."
"The FAA has grounded everyone," he explained, "helicopters included. Not only is it incredibly dangerous because the storm is already closing in on the area they may be, but you'd be in direct violation of federal law."
Morgan clenched his jaw, holding back the barrage of places the FAA could stick their law. Losing his temper wasn't helping his friends, nor was it making him feel any better. The rest of his team held similar faces, each retreating into their own minds for ideas.
The flight controller watched them for a moment before stepping in close and lowering his voice, "The forecast is predicting a short break in the storm in about twelve hours. If you really want to go after them yourselves you just might be able to get a bird off the ground and out there without creating a legal nightmare. But you didn't hear it from me."
Hotch lowered his voice to match, "how big of a window will we have?"
"An hour? Two tops. If you move fast, you should be able to make it up there and at least see if there's anything there to search."
"Thank you."
The man gave him a short nod and replaced his headset over his ears, signaling the conversation was over.
Hotch turned on his heels, pulling the door open and leading the rest of the team back into the snow. They followed him quickly back to their office before any of them spoke. Once inside with the door secured, they perched themselves around the small table to come up with a plan.
"Twelve hours," Hotch said quietly, "we have twelve hours to decide if we can do this."
"What exactly are we talking about Hotch?" Emily asked, "Are we seriously going to take on this mountain in a snow storm by ourselves?"
"I'm asking," he leaned on his hands on the table to look at each of them, "Is this something we can do?"
"We have to try," Morgan replied, "we can't just leave them up there."
"I agree," Emily nodded.
Hotch nodded and thought to himself for a moment, letting the room dissipate to the sound of the rattling wall heater. After a few minutes, he raised his head and looked to Garcia. She had remained silent throughout the ordeal, but her face was bright with anxiety and worry.
"Garcia," he finally spoke and her head whipped up to meet his eyes, "I need you to get something up tracking that storm. If it changes, I don't want to have to wait to hear about it when it's convenient for them. Morgan and Prentiss, I need you to do what you can to find someone who knows that mountain. If we can't find someone crazy enough to take us up there, we at least need someone who can tell us where to look."
The remaining members of his team jumped to their tasks; Garcia whipping out more equipment to add to the stack they'd set up in the corner of the room, while Morgan and Prentiss tightened their jackets and set off into the storm to find information. Hotch felt oddly proud of his team's willingness to do whatever it took to save their friends, but he also felt a deep worry that it could all be a hopeless cause. Twelve hours was a long time to be exposed to a snow storm in the best of health. If any of them were injured, it would be pure luck, or even a miracle, that they would survive long enough to be rescued. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared out the window at the falling snow running ideas over in his head. One name came to the surface of his thoughts and he fought to push it back down. Despite his resistance, it stayed sharp in his brain and he let it linger, running his options. Shaking his head he tucked it aside for the time being. It was reckless and irresponsible, but he would risk anything to save his friends, his family, even if it risked his job and his reputation and maybe even his own life.
The first thing Rossi's mind registered as it pushed through the fog of unconsciousness was the cold. Not just cold, but a bitter wet cold that bit into your skin and made your bones ache. He forced himself to blink, wincing when his eyes were met with only bright white all around him. Though it was a peaceful silence, the brightness hurt his eyes and he knew he shouldn't be here. He stared straight ahead, trying to remember where he was and why he was so cold when something bumped hard against his back. Slowly he turned to see what had invaded his space. His eyes met a pair of knees and even his muddled brain decided that was unusual. He blinked hard, shaking his head to clear it, and slowly sound began to creep back to his ears.
He could hear a muffled voice, but couldn't make out what it was saying, or who it belonged to. He turned back to the knees, following the length of them until his eyes settled on the two brightly colored socks peeking out from the tops of shoes. Recognition struck him to awareness and all at once he remembered everything. He turned back in his seat, glancing at the unconscious pilot next to him, and suddenly Reid's knees hovering in front of him made sense. They were upside down. Rossi was still belted tightly into his seat, suspended in place, while Reid had somehow gotten himself down and was kneeling on the ceiling of the plane.
"JJ, don't move."
Reid's voice was clear enough to hear now, and JJ's high pitched, shuttering groan of a response was enough to have Rossi spinning back to face them. Like him, JJ was still secured in place by the simple lap belt and her hair hung over her face. She gripped Reid's shoulder in a white knuckled hold as he appeared to be trying to figure out how to get her down.
"Reid?" Rossi finally found his voice and Reid spun to look at him.
"Rossi, thank god," Reid breathed out, "are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," he answered, "you and JJ?"
"I'm fine but JJ is stuck. Her foot is pinned. I need your help."
Rossi nodded and turned back to his own dilemma of being upside down. He found the latch of his lap belt and braced his other hand against the ceiling to keep from falling on his face as he released it. The belt snapped open and he carefully maneuvered himself until he was sitting upright and let the blood flow back down from his head. Already he knew he'd have the mother of all headaches, but he had more important things to focus on now.
"Okay Kid, I'm here, what can I do?" he stuck his head between the two seats until he was cramped in next to Reid.
"Her foot is pinned under the pilot's seat," Reid answered, "it might be broken."
"Oh it's definitely broken," JJ gasped through clenched teeth, "can we please just get out of here?"
"Alright, hold on." Rossi slid back into the front seat and checked on the pilot.
Kyle was hunched over in his seat. Rossi reached over to check his neck for a pulse, and his head snapped up at the contact.
"Hey," Rossi spoke, "You alright, kid?"
The pilot blinked at him, shook his head then nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good."
"Can you get out?"
"What?" Kyle blinked at him, confused.
"We're upside down. My friend's foot is pinned under your seat. Can you get out?"
The pilot nodded, and pulled his seat belt, dropping himself with a thud against the roof before Rossi could help him. JJ hissed in pain as the movement of the seat dug further into her foot. Rossi turned and carefully squeezed himself out through the broken door next to his seat and out into the falling snow. Though the snow was falling steadily, it appeared they were still ahead of the storm and for that he was thankful. As he made his way to the other side of the plane, Kyle stumbled out and into the snow. He stayed on his hands and knees for a moment, staring in shock at the snow underneath him.
"We crashed," he said to himself, "Holy shit, we crashed!"
Rossi grabbed him by the elbow and helped him stand, forcing the kid to look at him. "I need to get my Agent's out of there. I need you to get on the radio and tell them what happened. Can you do that?"
He nodded quickly, slowly becoming more focused and reached into the cockpit and pulled the headset out as far as its cable would allow. Rossi pushed in past him and stuck his head inside, peering underneath the seat and grimaced when he saw JJ's foot. The weld on the bottom of the seat had snapped sometime during their crash landing. JJ's foot had wedged in, and caught on the broken metal, digging into her ankle and refusing to let her back out. He could see a small pool of blood under the seat where it had been dripping from the broken metal digging into her skin. He couldn't tell if she was right about it being broken, but it was likely a painful injury either way.
"Alright Reid, I got it," he called out, "You're gonna have to push her foot forward first. Then I'll pull the chair up and you can slide it out okay."
"Ok, give me a second," Reid answered.
Reid pushed in against the death grip JJ had on his shoulder to readjust himself in the small space. JJ gasped when any of his movements caused her leg to move, digging the metal deeper into her ankle.
"I'm sorry JJ," he apologized, "are you okay?"
"I'll be okay when you get me out of here," she grimaced.
He nodded and kneeled directly under her so he could get access to her leg, and she could brace herself on his legs while they freed her. He gave her one last look, eyes meeting and he silently apologized for the pain they were likely to cause her.
She gave him a curt node, "Do it."
"Okay Rossi," he called and pushed her leg forward.
JJ tried to bite back a cry of pain as the jagged metal pulled out from the gashes it had settled into. Rossi watched the new release of blood flowing from where the metal was as she was pushed free and he yelled out to Reid to stop. With as much leverage as he could get, he gripped the sides of the seat and pulled hard. The weakened metal cracked and gave, opening the gap wider and he quickly peeked under to see how much room he had opened up. Satisfied, he gave the seat one last pull, giving them plenty of space and gave Reid the okay to remove JJ's foot. Rossi gently reached under and guided her boot passed the jagged metal as Reid kept it steady from the other side until she was finally free of the trap.
JJ released a pained sigh of relief and let Reid help her from her belt, until she sat on the ceiling of the plane next to him, breathing hard. She slowly got her breathing under control and took in the sight around them. The right side of the plane had been ripped and bent, leaving a gaping hole where the wing had been. The contents of the cargo area where strewn about, and the bags they'd held on their laps where nowhere to be seen.
"We're alive," she breathed out, realization dawning on her.
Reid gave her a small smile, "we are."
Outside, Kyle was shouting into the headset, running his hands over his face. He was becoming more and more hysterical and finally Rossi set a hand on his should and took the headset from him. The pilot plopped down into the snow, staring in disbelief at what was left at his plane.
"Mayday Mayday, can anyone hear me?" Rossi spoke into the headset, eyes staying on the distraught pilot "This is Agent Rossi with the FBI. Can anyone hear me?"
He held his breath, waiting for an answer, but he was met with only a crackle of static.
"Our plane has gone down somewhere south of Kotzebue. If you can hear me, I have four people in need of emergency evac. Is there anyone out there?"
Rossi repeated the message four times before he pulled the headset off and let it fall to the floor. Reid and JJ watched him silently as their dire situation sank in further. They were stranded in an upside down airplane, with injuries, and a bad storm would be closing in on them any minute.
Rossi crouched down next to the young man, who suddenly looked even younger than before and set a hand on his shoulder.
"Hell of a job up there." Rossi spoke sincerely.
The kid looked up at him and grimaced, "Were you on the same plane as me? Cause I crashed mine into a fuckin mountain."
"You kept your head and did what you could. We're all alive."
"Yeah?"
Rossi nodded, "Yeah. But we need you to keep your head and help us out here. We're gonna be stuck here for awhile and that storm isn't going to wait. You know this environment, and we need to build this thing up to protect us."
Kyle looked around at the plane and debris around them as if finally realizing it was snowing heavily on them. The wind would soon be picking up and then night would come.
"Okay. Yeah I can do that," he nodded.
Dave helped him stand and they made their way around the other side of the plane.
"Dave?" JJ said quietly when he peeked his head in, "the radio?"
"Sorry," he replied, "we've been lucky this far. Maybe our luck will hold out and someone heard the message. We'll keep trying."
JJ gave him a sympathetic smile, "You know the team. They'll be looking for us."
Rossi nodded, "then we better get as comfortable and safe as possible until they get here. Kyle and I are going to try and set this thing up to shelter us from the storm as much as possible. Reid, how's the foot?"
"I can't really tell," Reid answered, "I don't want to take her boot off when it could be the best splint she has for it right now."
"There's a first aid kit in the back," Kyle interrupted, "It's a red bag."
Reid reached under the seats that he and JJ had been sitting in and pushed the various cardboard boxes around, searching for the bag.
"How do we get these seats out?" he asked, "We could use the extra room."
Kyle appeared in the opening next to Rossi, "There's a lever on the back left side. Pull it forward and slide the seat to the left."
Reid followed the instructions and with Rossi's help, removed the two jump seats, opening up the entire cargo area. He quickly pushed through the boxes and bags that had been strewn about in the crash and spotted the bright red bag in the back section. He pushed himself up onto his knees and climbed over the top of a box, and it crushed under his weight as he reached for the bag. He froze in his reach and frowned down at the box. He carefully picked up one of the plastic wrapped bricks that had spilled from the box and turned it over in his hand. He frowned and shook his head, then grabbed the first aid kit before moving back to join JJ.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," JJ groaned, looking at the wrapped white powder in his hand.
Rossi chose that moment to stick his head back into the cabin and frowned at Reid. After a moment's hesitation he shook his head and called over his shoulder, "Oh Kyle, could you come here for a minute."
The kid left the discarded jump seat and stumbled over to his side. As soon as he saw the contents in Reid's hand he froze, all color draining from his face.
"It's not mine I swear."
"They always say that," Rossi said to Reid, keeping Kyle in his vision.
"No," Kyle's voice was high pitched, "I swear. It isn't mine. I just fly it."
Rossi sighed. Suddenly the pilot's nervous demeanor when finding out the federal agents would be flying with him made sense. The kid was a drug mule, and by the looks of it, cocaine was the Alaskan drug of choice. He thought to himself for a moment on how he should react to the new revelation. In truth, there really wasn't anything they could do about it now. It didn't change their situation and they still needed to prepare what little shelter they had from the storm.
"We'll cross that road when we come to it," Rossi conceded, "for now we need to clear out as much of that cargo area as we can. Reid, do what you can with JJ's ankle while Kyle and I build up some storm shelter."
Rossi disappeared from view and Reid carefully set the cocaine brick down to open the first aid kit. He smiled to JJ and she winced when he lifted her pant leg. The deep gashes were bleeding freely now, drenching her sock and boot in thick blood.
"How far out do you think that storm is?" JJ's voice shook as distracted she herself from what he was doing.
"I have no idea," he answered, focused on her injury, "snow is starting to come down, but the wind isn't too bad yet."
"I guess the positive side of being trapped in a plane full of drugs is that we know that more people will be looking for us," she teased.
Reid's face fell slightly. He didn't want to imagine being found only to be shot by drug smugglers.
"Relax Reid," she grinned, "I was kidding. If anyone's going to find us out here, it's the team."
He nodded and turned his full attention to her ankle. He was thankful for JJ's style in footwear, which included a convenient zipper up the inside of the boot which he used to remove it. She winced as he pulled the leather and sock from her foot and he apologized before grabbing a bandage and the bottle of saline from the kit.
While Reid cleaned and bandaged JJ's foot, they could feel the plane rocking as Rossi and Kyle worked on the outside to fortify their shelter. Kyle poked his head into the cockpit, dug around in a consol for a moment before retrieving a roll of duct tape and disappearing again. Once JJ's foot was tightly bandaged, he helped her slide back until her back rested against the back of the pilot's seat, making as much room as possible for them to clear out the area around her.
A half an hour later, the guys had done all they could in preparing for the storm. Rossi and Kyle and retrieved the broken wing of the plane and braced it up against the side of the aircraft, stabilizing it as much as possible for when the wind started pounding against it. They'd used the duct tape to patch up any holes that would let in wind and moisture. It had only taken Reid ten minutes to remove the second jump seat, and clear out all of the boxes from the cargo area, carefully scanning for broken bags. They last thing they needed was free floating cocaine in their only shelter. When he was done, they had about a three by six foot open area that would act as their home until someone came and rescued them.
"I think we could put a fire right inside the plane," Reid said to Rossi as they surveyed their options, "If we remove the front seats, we should have room, and the hole in the side would vent the smoke while the rest protected it from the storm."
Rossi smiled at the genius, "are you sure you weren't a boy scout?"
Reid smiled and they set out to gather what they could to prepare for a fire. They located a patch of trees a few feet away and quickly began pulling and tearing at branches. The wind was picking up, howling and sweeping up snow all around them, and their hand and feet were frozen by the time the returned to the plane. They tossed the wet wood into the cargo area, and Reid, Rossi and Kyle climbed inside, pulling the door closed behind them and sealing it with duct tape.
Rossi rubbed his hands together, breathing into them before speaking, "Ok, let get this fire going before the wind keeps blowing it out."
Since the tree branches were too wet to burn, Rossi and Reid has stripped the stuffing from all of the seats and shredded three notebooks with of flight manuals and maps from the cockpit.
"Stand there, and block the wind," Reid directed.
Rossi stood, hovering over the younger man and Kyle pulled a lighter from his from his pocket and handed it to Reid. They'd been lucky that their pilot had turned out to be a smoker. Smokers meant lighters and they desperately needed a lighter. Reid carefully lit the crumpled paper, holding his hand over it as the wind snuck around Rossi and threatened to blow it out. The paper lit, burning and curling in on itself, and once it had a good flame he added some of the seat stuffing. It burned black and had an odd odor to it that they figured was best to inhale as little as possible of.
Soon the fire had grown large enough that they weren't worried about the snow putting it out and the three men shimmied back further into the small cabin. With all four of them sitting inside, the small cabin was cramped. They'd gone through the boxes as the pulled them from the plane, and had really only found two of any use. Luckily the small airline required all planes be equipped with emergency gear, which really only consisted of a couple thermal blankets, some water bottles, some granola bars and a handheld radio with a dead battery. They other box had been a large thick sleeping bag that someone named Richard Marshal had ordered from a store in Juneau that hadn't yet been delivered. Rossi spread unzipped it into a large blanket that covered all of their outstretched legs, and promised himself that he'd buy Mr. Marshal a new one.
Once they were settled, they fell into silence, none of them knowing what to say as the weight of their situation sank in. They were safe and warm for now, but how long would they stay that way? JJ's ankle was throbbing, Rossi had a mild concussion from the initial crash, and Reid had slowly begun favoring his right knee. The young pilot stared at the fire, unfocused while his chewed on his fingernail.
"How long do you think it'll take them to find us?" he spoke around his finger.
"I don't know, but I bet our team is down there raising hell right about now," Rossi answered.
"Oh," he nodded, "I guess they would search for FBI agents right away huh?"
They shared a smile at the image of Hotch, Morgan and Prentiss demanding something be done to find them and intimidating the locals into working faster. Even Garcia would be in on it, throwing a fuss and taking over the command center. They settled into a comfortable silence, listening to the howling wind outside as it grew and imagined their warm beds and hot coffee waiting for them.
Author's Note: Well there you have it boys and girls! Click that review button and let me know what you think!