A/N: As promised, chapter seven is here! Thanks again to my lovely beta, whose critiques are both grammatically correct and extremely sassy- only you can make me laugh about my misuse of commas.

Chapter Seven- Buried

Jess woke slowly, vaguely wondering why it was so dark in her bedroom. Even if she had forgotten to turn on the lamp beside her bed before falling asleep, the light from the street lamp outside her window should have provided enough light for her to see her surroundings. She had a terrible headache, worse than anything she had experienced since her best friend's bachelorette party, but she had no memory of going out. After several confused moments, the memories of the anomaly and the explosion came rushing back to her and she jerked awake with a start. She suddenly realized that she was pinned to the ground by a heavy weight, which, combined with her panicked state, was making it difficult for her to breathe properly.

Just as she was about to give into her oncoming anxiety attack, she realized that the heavy weight on top of her was Becker. Her mind flashed back to the moments before the explosion and she remembered him throwing himself over her to protect her. She calmed slightly when she felt his warm breath on her neck, reassuring her that he was at least still alive. After a brief struggle, she managed to free her right arm from under Becker's dead weight and raised her hand to feel the back of his head, her hand coming away sticky with blood. He had sustained some kind of head injury, but it was not bleeding heavily. She desperately hoped it had simply knocked him out. He had almost certainly taken the worst of the damage when the building had collapsed, having used his body to shield her. As heavy as he was, she did not dare try to move him while he was unconscious for fear of causing him further injury.

She had no idea how much time had passed since the explosion. Though she could see nothing through the total darkness that surrounded her, she guessed they were buried under several tons of concrete and steel. She could only hope that Matt, Connor, and Abby had not been caught in the blast and that they were now working to find them.

"Becker?" she whispered hoarsely, breaking the deafening silence. She cleared her throat and spoke again. "Becker!"

She heard him mumble something unintelligible into her hair and then groan.

"Becker! Are you all right?"

"Jess?" he responded after a moment. She felt him shift his weight above her and a moment later he rolled off of her and onto his side, groaning again as he did so.

She gasped in a breath of fresh air, her barely contained panic still threatening to spill over.

"Are you alright?" she heard him ask, his voice echoing strangely in the wreckage around them. "Are you injured?"

She pressed her hand to her throbbing forehead, willing herself to remain calm. "No…" she answered shakily. "No, I think I'm all right."

"Jess?" he asked again, his voice full of concern.

"It's- it's so dark!" she whispered, painfully aware of how childish and frightened her voice sounded.

"Hang on." She heard a rustling noise and a moment later was blinded by light as Becker produced a small flashlight from his vest.

"Better?" he asked, and she nodded earnestly and shifted onto her side to face him.

"Loads." Looking up at him, she suddenly became self-conscious, realizing how close they were in the tiny space; his face was only inches from her own.

Becker, however, seemed completely oblivious to her embarrassment as he cast the beam of the flashlight around them idly, surveying their surroundings. There was little to see other than twisted metal and concrete blocks. The ground around them was littered with metal shavings and broken glass. The space they were trapped in was very small- there was just enough room for them both to lay flat, side by side. There was not even enough room above her head for her to sit up. Her breath hitched in her throat and her panic resurfaced as the reality of their situation began to sink in.

"I just can't believe this happened." She whispered, tears welling in her eyes, blurring her vision. Her breathing increased and she realized she was going to hyperventilate. "Do you think Matt, Abby, and Connor got out in time?"

"Jess, you need to stay calm. They got out," Becker tried to reassure her. "Matt knew the plan. And he'll find us."

"Becker, they have no idea where to start looking for us. How are they going to find us? We're under a building! And you're assuming they're even looking for us. They probably think we're dead. I mean, we should be dead. Do you realize how small the odds of someone surviving something like this are? What if we run out of air?"

"Jessica!"

She finally stopped babbling and forced herself to take a slow breath.

"Matt, Connor, and Abby aren't going to give up on us any more than you or I would give up on them. They'll come for us. All right?"

She nodded, and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Now, we need to focus on contacting them," Becker said calmly. "I lost my earpiece. I don't suppose you've got yours?"

She shook her head. "I gave you and Matt the only two I had with me. What about your black box?"

She heard him unclip it from his belt and a moment later pressed it into her outstretched hand. "Do you think it's still transmitting?"

She took the box from his hand to inspect more closely. It was nearly cracked in half, but most of the inner pieces seemed to be intact.

"It might be," she said finally, carefully laying it on the ground between them. "But I can't be sure."

"What about your mobile?"

She shifted awkwardly so she could remove her mobile from her back pocket and shook her head as she looked at the screen. "Still no signal."

"Of course not," he muttered. "I don't suppose you've got any bright ideas?"

"Not yet," she said, sliding her mobile back into the front pocket of her jeans. "But I'm working on it." Her hand brushed against something warm and sticky on her cardigan just above her waist. She pressed her fingers into the spot and held them up to the light to investigate. She stared at her bloody fingers in confusion for a moment, wondering where so much blood could have come from.

"Becker!" she gasped, snatching the flashlight away from him and shining the beam down his torso. His right hand was pressed tightly against his side and blood was flowing freely from between his fingers. Her hand flew towards the wound but stopped short of touching him for fear of causing him more pain.

"I've had worse," Becker quipped in a strained voice.

Jess took a deep breath to steady herself before she spoke again. "Let me see," she commanded, gently nudging his hand aside and shining the light directly onto the wound. She fought to keep her face passive as she inspected his injury. There was a deep gash in his side, probably from a piece of shrapnel in the explosion, she guessed. It was deep, deep enough that she began to worry about the possibility of internal injury. She had never considered herself to be squeamish about blood before; she had certainly seen her fair share of carnage in her line of work. Of course, it was almost never in person and she had never been the one to provide first aid- she had an army of medics to do that for her. "You're going to be fine, Becker," she said, trying and failing to keep her voice steady.

"You're a terrible liar, Jess," he said, not missing the tremor in her voice. "I know it's bad."

"Maybe so," she conceded briskly, putting on her most professional voice, "but you're still going to be fine." She began unbuttoning her cardigan and wriggled out of it. "We need to put pressure on it and stop the bleeding." She folded the cardigan and laid it across the wound but hesitated before touching him again.

"I know it'll hurt, Jess. Go ahead."

She carefully applied pressure against the wound, biting her lip as she did so. He cursed loudly, gritting his teeth in pain. "Sorry," he said a moment later, apologizing for his foul language.

She forced herself to smile to hide her fear. "You're hurt. You go ahead and curse all you like."

He gave a short laugh before wincing again.

"Are you all right?" she asked quickly, growing more worried. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"Cuts and bruises," he answered shiftily, "not to mention a nasty headache."

"Why didn't you say something sooner?" she demanded, forcing herself not to panic over this new development. He had already lost what seemed like a lot of blood and all she could do to help was try to stop him from losing any more.

"I didn't want you to worry."

She knew she should have been more upset with him for not telling her sooner, but to her own great surprise after a moment of silence she began to giggle uncontrollably.

"Jess?" he asked, the worried look on his face only making her laugh harder.

"Sorry," she gasped, wiping a tear of mirth away from her eyes as she regained her composure. "It's just your logic. We're trapped under a collapsed building with no way of contacting our friends while you're injured and you don't want me to worry?"

Now that she had the flashlight, she copied his earlier movements, casting the light around to investigate their situation. She tilted her head back to look behind them and was nearly blinded by the reflection of the light on the grille of his truck, which was now upside down. She realized that most of the glass around them must have come from the shattered windshield. The way the truck had landed, she could just see the interior through a tiny space between the hood and the ground.

"Found your truck," she joked, shining the light onto the crushed frame. "I think you might need a new one, though."

He nodded and closed his eyes. "Lester will be thrilled," he murmured, his voice trailing off. "Lots of paperwork…"

"I really think you need to stay awake," she said nervously. "Matt will find us soon, and I know you'd hate to miss being rescued."

He sighed and forced his eyes open again. "How long have we been down here?"

She glanced at her watch. "I'm not sure. Maybe an hour?" She pressed the heel of her hand clutching the flashlight to her throbbing head again. "I must have been unconscious longer than I thought."

"Let me see." He gently pried the flashlight out of her hand and shined the light onto her forehead. "You've got a nasty bump coming in. You'll be fine." He carefully brushed his fingers against the side of her face to tuck a stray bit of hair back behind her ear, making her shiver. "Are you cold?"

"A bit," she admitted, secretly thinking that the shiver had very little to do with the temperature.

An awkward silence fell between them as they both tried to think of something to say. Jess admonished herself for having panicked like that. She needed to stay calm if they were both going to survive. Becker was badly hurt; he did not need to worry about reassuring her as well.

"What do we do now?" Jess asked quietly, finally breaking the awful silence. It was the last thing she wanted to ask, but it was all she could think of anymore.

"Well," Becker said, covering her hand at his side with his own, "we're trapped under a collapsed building with no way out and no way of contacting anyone. Now we wait."