She was alive. She could tell that from her pounding headache. She blinked her eyes, but soon closed them when the light made her flitch. After a few minutes she tried to open them again. Everything was out of focus and foggy. Her glasses had fallen during the crash. She groaned as she tried to get up.

"Argh…" She patted her hands around and she finally located them on her chest. They were slightly bent, but still did their job. "Andy!" She called out her voice hoarse.

She looked around. It was a mess. Cables were damaged and electricity was sparking from them, pieces of metals were hanging. Some of the trees tops had slowed their fall, but it hadn't been enough. She tried to get up; the banging in her told her not to. She took her headset off. When she ran her fingers through her hair she felt something wet. She looked at her fingers and they were bright red. She had a gash on her forehead. She will need to take care of that, but first she had to assess the situation and that meant finding Andy.

That hadn't been difficult. Her lieutenant was lying unconscious on the floor. "Andy!" She shouted bending on her knees next to him. Please, let him be alive! She thought as she ran her hands up and down his face and then checked for a pulse.

It was there!

She took a big breath of relief and her panic level dropped a notch.

"Andy!" She tried again. She didn't want to shake him not knowing what was wrong with him. Moving him might be fatal. "Lieutenant! Wake up!" She tried ordering him.

"Will you keep it down?" came the husky reply.

"Andy!" She didn't think it was possible but she was so happy to hear is voice.

"What happened?" he tried sitting up but everything hurt.

"We crashed. Are you okay?"

"My right leg. Hurts like hell." He said with gritted teeth.

Sharon looked down with his body, she had been more concerned to find him alive than to check for any other injuries. She gasped when she saw what was causing his pain.

"How bad is it?" He had heard her gasp.

She swallowed hard. "It's going to be okay." She tried to reassure him.

"You're a terrible liar." He tried to joke giving her a grim smile.

Stuck through his leg was a piece of metal. It had gone through and through pinning him down to the floor. It was probably best if they stayed there and didn't move. Rescue would be there soon and if she tried to take the metal out, he might die from blood lost.

"How's the pilot?"

Sharon had completely forgotten about the young pilot. She had been so worried about Andy. She looked at the front cockpit where the pilot should have been. She got up and took a couple of steps. Officer Pride's body was lying on top of the controls. She checked for his pulse, but she couldn't find one. She was that his chest was covered in blood, he died on impact.

He was so young. She thought sadly.

With watering eyes she turned her head towards Andy and lightly shook it. She could feel the tears coming, but she couldn't start crying now. She needed to keep it together and get them out of this situation alive. She returned to were Andy was. He was having trouble keeping his eyes opened.

"Hey!" He goofy smiled at her.

"Hey!" She gave him a small smile.

"You're bleeding." He lifted his arm up to caress her face.

"It's nothing." She waved him off. She could see that his pants were getting darker and darker and he kept losing blood from his leg. "We will stay here and wait for rescue to arrive. I'm sure they've already sent someone."

Then she had a sudden idea: her phone! She checked her jacket pockets where she usually kept her cellphone and in her right pocket she found it.

"I'll call someone, let them know…" but she checked her phone screen: No signal. "Damn!"

Of course, when she looked out of the window they were flying over Los Angeles National Forest. They were probably out of cell range.

"Wow, such language!" Andy commented sleepily.

"Where's your phone?" She ignored him; maybe they still had a shot.

"Left trousers' pocket." He felt her putting her hands on him. "Who knew you were so frisky?"

She took his phone out on his pocket, but it had been damaged in the accident. She sighed in frustration. She ran her hands in her hair. The blood had now dried and left her hair sticky. She was certain she looked a mess. Right now she wanted to relax in a hot bath drinking a glass of cool wine, maybe with some music in the background. She shook her fantasy away. They had more pressing matters.

"Okay, even if we can communicate right now it doesn't mean they won't find us." She didn't know if she was trying to reassure Andy or herself.

"We can't stay here." Andy suddenly told her.

"What? Andy, I don't think we should m…"

"Can't you smell gasoline? The tank probably broke in the crash. Everything could explode any second."

So that's what that strong smell was! "Andy… your leg, if we move you…"

"Sharon, go. Get what you can and walk as fa away from here as possible." He pleaded.

"I'm not leaving you here!"

"Sharon…"

"No!" She told him strongly. "I'm not leaving you. Will either stay together or leave together!"

He shook his head frustrated. "You can be so stubborn! I would only slow you down! I will probably die anyway, there's no need…"

"Stop arguing and let's actually do something." Swallowing the lump in her throat that had formed merely at the thought of him dying.

She looked around the wreckage looking for something that could be helpful. Someone might come in just a few minutes or maybe they were going to have to wait for hours. She saw their duffle bags on the floor. They might need those. She tried opening the door. It wasn't easy, something was blocking it, but with a big push she managed to half open it, just enough of space for them to get down. The helicopter had gone down between two big trees. There was a small jump from where they were and the ground. She was thankful that at the last moment before leaving her office, she had switched her high heeled shoes with a pair of flat ones. For her it was going to be a semi-easy jump, but she was worried for Andy. They still had to find a way to get that metal piece out of his leg without him losing too much blood.

She threw the bags out of the helicopter and they reached the ground with a small bang. She found a filled water bottle and a couple of energy bars. She also found a small medical kit and she carried back to Andy.

"How are you doing?"

"I certainly had better days but then I also had worse." He told her remembering his dark drinking days.

The smell of gasoline was getting stronger and they both knew that if it reached one of those hanging cables, it would all explode.

"Okay, so I'm going to try and get this piece of metal out." Sharon opened the medical kit to see what was inside. No local anesthetics.

Andy knew what her look meant. "It's going to hurt like hell, isn't it?"

She gave him a small smile and patted his arm. "I'm afraid so. I'll go slowly."

"Just take it out. Like a bandage."

"I'm afraid I will nick an artery." They didn't say what they were both thinking. Maybe it had already hit his artery and that meant that there was nothing they could do for it now.

She prepared what she needed from the medical kit, disinfectant and sterile dressings.

"Okay," she nodded gripping the metal pipe. "On three. One, two…" she lifted up.

Andy's shouts of pain made her cry. "Stop, stop!" He cried.

Sharon only managed to separate the pipe from the helicopter floor. Andy took a deep breath and dried the tears from his eyes. Then he looked at her and nodded. One hand gripped a seat. His knuckles turning white from the tight hold.

It broke her heart to cause him so much pain, but it had to be done. Sharon grabbed the pipe again and this time she continued while he shouted and coursed. Finally the metal was out, but Andy had lost consciousness. She threw it away and immediately started working on his thigh. She pressed the gauzes on the injury. There was too much blood. The gauze and her hands were stained from the crimson liquid.

Please, stop.

She continued pressing down hard and after some moments it slowed down. She sighed and dried the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand. She disinfected the wound and then covered with some bandages.

"Andy! Andy wake up." She slightly slapped him on the face.

"Hugh…" he slowly woke up. "Oh God, it wasn't a nightmare?"

"I'm afraid not." She lightly chuckled. "Can you get up?"

They needed to leave.

"I'll try." She put her arms around him and helped him get up. His clothes were drenched with sweat. Together they got rid of his suit jacket and took his tie off with was now ruined.

"It was one of my favourite ties." He pouted has he undid the first buttons of his shirt.

She rolled her eyes at him. "When we make it out of here, I'll buy you a new one."

"If."

She laid her hands on his cheeks and locked her eyes with him. "When." She told him firmly and released him only when he nodded back.

Sharon was the first one to get out carrying the water bottle, the energy bars and a radio. Andy was to follow. He sat on the edge of the helicopter and slid down. Since he was tall it had been relatively easy even with the injured leg.

"Let's get moving." He said as he limped towards Sharon. Every time he put his leg down, a shooting pain went across his body. "I'll get dark soon."

She nodded and picked up a duffle bag. There was no way that they could carry both of them, so at the end she decided to put all what they might need in one and leave the non-essential there. Unfortunately that meant also leaving behind one of her favourite pair of shoes.

With one hand holding the bag and the other arm around Andy helping walk. It took them over twenty minutes to what they hoped was a safe distance. Ten minutes later they were startled at the ground shook and they heard a big explosion behind them. A big balk cloud was in the sky and they could say the high flames. The helicopter was gone and so was the body of Officer Pride. Sharon knew that when this was over she was going to be the one to notify his family. It was the least she could do.

Thanks to some basic surviving skill they knew with direction to take for LA and they slowly started walking that way.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Back at PAB, Provenza was waiting for their captain's call giving them news. They had been gone for over an hour now and surely they must have known something by now. It was getting late and he wanted to go home. He took some convincing and ordering, but Rusty had finally agreed to sleep on the Lieutenant's couch and the teenager boy was going to pick some burgers and wait for him at his place. That was if he could finally get out of there.

"Hey, has anyone of you heard from Flynn or the Captain?"

They all looked up and a shook their heads.

"No, sir." Detective Julio Sanchez said.

"That's strange." Provenza murmured.

"I'll try their cell." Lieutenant Mike Tao picked up his mobile phone and scrolled down to the Captain's name. He waited. "It goes straight to voice mail."

"So does Flynn's." Detective Amy Sykes said from her seat.

"Maybe they are still in the air." Julio shrugged his shoulders.

From the corner of his eye Provenza saw Assistant Chief walking towards them. He saw the expression on his face. He knew what it meant. It was bad news and from the pit in his stomach he had the feeling that it involved his friends.

"Chief?"

"Hmm…" Taylor cleared his throat. "I've just got a call from air command." He looked down. "The helicopter never got to its destination. They barely received a May Day call before they lost contact. They think that the helicopter went down somewhere over LA National Forest."

Every one gasped and looked scared.

"The Captain? Flynn?" Julio asked.

"We have no news so far."

"What are they doing to find them, sir?" Buzz Watson from where he was sitting in front of his computer.

"They can't send a search them right now. They wind is too strong and it will soon be dark."

"So what?" Provenza got up from his chair angrily. "They are just going to give up? Let them die?" Nobody wanted to think that maybe their friends had already died from the crash.

"They will start searching first thing tomorrow morning. But for now…" He sighed. "For now we wait. There's nothing more we can do. If you could please inform their family and then you can go home. I'll call you if I know something more." He said before leaving.

Julio shook his head incredulously. "We can't just do nothing, sir!" He told Provenza.

"You heard Taylor. It's too dangerous."

"But sir, we could go. See if…"

"Julio, they went down in a damn forest. It will be like trying to find a needle in a haystack!" He closed his eyes in frustration and put a hand on his forehead. "We will leave it to competent authorities. Now…" He sighed and opened his eyes. "Tao, Sykes, I want you to drive to the location of the second body. We still have a murder to investigate. It's probably going to take you all night to…"

"It's okay, sir." Sykes got up from her chair ready to leave. "We'll take turns driving." She looked at her colleague Tao.

The techy lieutenant nodded. "Yeah, I'll just call Kathy and tell her I won't be home." He paused. "Let's know if you hear anything."

They nodded before leaving.

"Julio, Buzz, go home. I need you rested for tomorrow. It's going to be a long day."

Julio wanted to protest again, but he knew he was on a short leash since his anger issues. He took his jacket from his chair and walked away without saying anything.

Provenza sighed. He really didn't want to deal with the detective's bad temper.

"Sir, I could talk with Rusty if it helped." The younger man volunteered. Rusty looked at him like an older brother, maybe it would help if the news came from him.

"Thanks Buzz, but it's something I need to do. I'll call Nicole, Flynn's daughter and then go to my house. Rusty is probably already there waiting. Together we will call the Captain's other children."

It was going to be a long night, so much for resting.