Day One

He knew she was pissed. He understood why, but he hoped that the separation would help them. Alex Karev was the last to board the plane, the other five already up the steps and in their seats. He knew that going to Hopkins was hurting Arizona. He knew that she wanted him as her fellow, but Hopkins wanted him. Hopkins wanted Alex Karev, the boy who had been through so much, who had survived so much. They wanted the loser kid from Iowa who had gone to juvie, who had two schizos in the family, who failed his entrance intern exams. How could he pass up an offer like that? How could Arizona not understand?

As he took his seat, he looked at the other doctors who were going with him to Boise. Meredith had her head resting on Derek's shoulder, his arm wrapped around her. Lexie and Mark sat next to each other, and he could see them send the occasional glance. He didn't know what was going on with them, but he could see that they loved each other even if they weren't willing to admit it. He took the only seat available behind Cristina.

Thinking about Hopkins made him think of where they all started. It seemed like yesterday they were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed interns ready to make their mark. Now, they were three Board Certified surgeons. He tried not to think of the other two that weren't with them, tried to keep his mind off his ex-wife who had disappeared to God-knows-where and O'Malley who had just wanted to impact the world in a positive way. Twisted Sisters. Dr. Model. 007. Evil-Spawn. They'd had their ups and their downs, but they were a team who had been split up by life.

He didn't notice when the plane had taken off, his mind too caught up in his thoughts. However, once he noticed they were in the air, he put his headphones in and turned the MP3 volume up as high as he could, trying to drown out Meredith and Derek's conversation. His eyes closed as he slowly drifted off to sleep.

In his dreams, he was flying, but not in a plane. He was freefalling, able to see the ground below him. He could hear his own screams, he could hear his father and his mother, he could hear Arizona. Everyone he'd ever let down was screaming at him, cursing him. The next thing he knew, everything went black.

The first thing he felt was searing pain coursing through his body. His eyelids were heavy, the sounds of muffled screaming coming through the ringing in his ears. As he opened his eyes, he could make out the shapes of the trees, the leaves swimming above him. Wasn't he supposed to be in a plane?

"Derek!" Meredith's voice was the first to pierce through the screaming. Who was screaming? That's when he realized that the screams were tearing from his chest, his throat burning with each yell. "Derek!" Their screams mingled together, clashing. He looked down at his body, his leg the source of a majority of the pain. Clawing at the fabric, it finally ripped away to reveal a sight he didn't want to see.

His upper thigh was mangled, skin shredded. The femur was jutting out at a disgusting angle, at least six inches of bone showing. His chest burned as he held back the screams, whimpering slightly. "Derek!" Meredith screamed again, but the only thing he could focus on was his leg and trying to keep the pain at bay.

"Alex," he heard Cristina say from beside him. She was kneeling on the ground, her hands trying to keep his bleeding at bay. He hadn't even felt her hands on his leg until she brought him out of his thoughts. The ground was wet, soaking through the clothes on his back.

"I can't lose it, Yang." His voice pleaded with her, and she nodded. Hopkins wouldn't want him if he lost his leg. Hopkins wouldn't wait that long for him. If he lost the leg, it would be months of healing before he could be fitted for a prosthetic - if he would even qualify for one. There might not be enough leg to salvage to fit one, or there would be too much nerve damage that would cause too much pain to be fitted for one.

"I have to find Mark and Lexie. Meredith is looking for Derek. I'll be back, Alex." She stood, and he started to panick. He could tell the pilot was dead from the way his body was mangled and bent in the cockpit. She couldn't leave him alone, so he grabbed her arm before she could turn away.

"Don't." His voice was pleading. "Please don't."

"I'll be back." She ripped her arm from his grasp, walking away and leaving him alone with a still bleeding leg, pain, and fear.

They were all in shock. All of his medical knowledge told him that they were all in shock. Cristina most likely had some kind of injury that she hadn't noticed yet. Had this been an 'ideal' crash, they'd all be in c-collars and on backboards being prepared for x-rays and CT scans. Instead, they were stranded in the middle of the woods in God-knows what state. They could still be in Washington, or they could be in Montana, Oregon, or Idaho.

If he didn't know where they were, how would any rescue party? How would they be found? Panic filled his already panicking body. His heart raced faster and faster until he was short of breath and his head swam and his ears rang.

"I'm gonna die," he muttered to himself as his breathing finally slowed to a reasonable speed. The birds chirped around him, and he could hear a stream in the distance. A banging sound mixed with the sounds of nature. A survivor? He could only hope, but at the same time, he could hope that it was the sounds of someone not involved in the crash. He hoped it was someone like Derek who lived in the middle of the God-damned woods and would stumble across them. Or maybe it was the sounds of a factory on the outskirts of a city.

"You're gonna be okay, Lexie," he could hear Mark say, almost a pleading voice. Turning his head to the side, he saw Mark carrying Lexie, Cristina following closely behind with her arm in a sling. "You're gonna be fine."

"Lay her down next to Alex," Cristina instructed. Alex could see the look shared between the two surgeons, Mark almost pleading with Cristina. "Just do it, Mark. So that we can see the damage done." Before Alex could ask anything, Lexie was being laid next to him. There was blood on the corners of her mouth. Her skin was pale, and her breathing was shaky with every breath.

"She's going to be okay, right?" Mark asked, as if Cristina had xray vision.

Alex laughed internally. This shouldn't be happening to any of them. Mark and Lexie would get together eventually, be happy with a family. She'd go into neuro with Derek while Mark would keep insisting she needed to go into plastics so that he and Avery would have somebody else in the Plastics Posse. She'd laugh him off and be happy in neuro. Cristina would excel as a cardio god, securing a spot at any hospital she even thought of working at. She'd be the new innovator, be the new Preston Burke. She'd find somebody who wouldn't want kids either, and she'd be as happy as she could be. Meredith and Derek would have several kids running around their house in the woods. They'd be happy, grow old together. Hopefully she'd never get Alzheimer's, but if she did, he'd be there for her every step of the way. And Alex… He'd find a girl and settle down eventually. He'd blow everybody at Hopkins away with his skill - the skill he'd gotten from Arizona Robbins. He'd be the best pediatric surgeon in the country.

He was ripped out of those thoughts of excellence and happiness by searing pain in his thigh. His eyes shot open, looking at the culprit. Cristina was trying her best to splint the leg, trying being the key word. It just felt like she was mangling him further, felt like she was stabbing him repeatedly. Where was Kepner when you needed her? Hell! Where was George? Both of those were the two trauma surgeons he would trust with something like this. Maybe Hunt would be at the top of that list, but still, Cristina Yang should not have had her hand in his leg.

"I think I've gotten it splinted enough to make it decently stable. Lexie was crushed under the wing of the plane, but Mark and I were able to get her out. Meredith is still looking for Derek," she told him, filling him in. "Your leg is broken, obviously. And my shoulder was dislocated, but Mark popped that back in. Mark seems to be okay besides some shock."

"Mer? How's Mer?" he finally asked as his heartbeat slowed and the pain started to subside into more of a dull ache.

"I...I don't know. She went to look for Derek." He deduced from this that Cristina most likely had a head injury along with her shoulder. If she didn't, she wouldn't have let Meredith go off on her own after a trauma. She would have at least checked her friend over to make sure she was okay before going to look for Derek.

"The plane crashed," Mark said softly, talking to nobody in particular. "The plane fucking crashed."

Alex turned his head to look at the man sitting next to Lexie. One of his hands was holder hers, the other stroked through her hair softly, soothingly as if he was petting a dog. He was pale, but Alex figured it was from the shock of it all. After all, their plane crashed in the middle of the woods. Who knew when they were going to be found, if at all?

That was a terrifying thought. What if they were never found? What if it was weeks or months before they were? He didn't want to think about trying to find a food source, the extremes that they may have to resort to. He'd read too many articles and watched too much television when it came to the topic of forced cannibalism. It was a terrifying thought. He just let his eyes slip shut.

When he woke again, it was to Cristina violently shaking him. Meredith sat next to an obviously unconscious Derek. She kissed his forehead, held his hand. When Alex looked closer, he saw that it was a very mangled hand. He could only imagine what had happened. Mark was still sitting next to Lexie, his eyes closed and breathing shallow.

"What?" he managed to choke out as the pain flooded back. Cristina helped him sit up, causing the pain to intensify until tears stung his eyes.

"We have to keep you moving as much as we can so that a blood clot doesn't form," she told him. "The same goes with Mark, Mer, and Derek. Obviously, because of Lexie's crush injuries, I can't get her moving, but the rest of you. That's not a problem, not much at least."

As Cristina walked away, he was blinded by the setting sun. Had it really been that long since the plane crashed? They'd boarded around ten in the morning, and sunset wasn't until close to seven or eight. If they'd been in the air for a few hours, that would mean the crash was around noon or one, and now it was already sunset. Their first day was almost up.

"How's Derek and Meredith?" he finally asked. Cristina knelt in front of Mark, turning her head to look at Alex.

"Meredith has a scalp lac. Derek's hand apparently was caught in part of the plane. According to Mer, he had to break his own hand, so not good. When they got back, we had to sew up a deep lac in his wrist. I wouldn't be surprised if he can't operate anymore."

She turned back to Mark, trying to get him to wake up. "Come on, Mark." She shook his shoulder harder, but with no luck. As she did a once over, Alex noticed bruising peaking out from the collar of his scrub-top.

"Cristina. Look at his chest," he suggested. She ripped the shirt away, revealing a bruise that covered a majority of his chest. "Shit."

"Shit's right, Evil-Spawn. Fucking cardiac tamponade." She stood, looking around the wreckage. What she was trying to look for, he didn't know. "Meredith! I need your help. Help me find a first-aid kit or something I can use to relieve Mark's tamponade."

"Mark has a tamponade?" she asked as she stood. Alex could only sit there and watch the two rummage through the debris, hoping they found something. Sure, he wasn't Mark's number one fan, but he was a good man. Lexie loved him, Avery adored him. Plus, Alex wasn't one to wish someone dead just because he didn't like them as a professional. He knew Mark was a nice guy in general, and he could only hope the two could find a way to save him.

"I found a first aid kit," Meredith finally said, jogging over with the small box. The two knelt next to Mark, laying him on the ground. Alex had managed to scoot himself over the few feet, the pain becoming blinding and white-hot.

"We don't have a needle, or a scalpel," Alex pointed out as Meredith removed the contents from the first aid kit. As she did so, he looked at each item until she pulled out two that would help with the process. "Those!" Her hands stopped moving, holding onto the objects.

"Scissors and a spray bottle?" Cristina asked, confused. Alex just looked at her, dumbfounded.

"Cut the nozzle off the spray bottle to leave just the tube. Use the sanitizer in the bottle as an antiseptic. Cut him open with the scissors acting as a scalpel and use the tube as a needle to decompress. It's not ideal, but hell, none of this is," he reminded them, motioning between the three and his own leg.

Cristina nodded as Meredith followed the instructions on how to make the makeshift needle. He realized his point was more valid than he'd originally thought. None of this was ideal. Ideally, they'd be in Boise prepping for the surgery. Or maybe they'd be in the middle of surgery by now. Ideally they wouldn't be stranded in the middle of the woods, injured and dying.

"Okay, Yang. You've done this a thousand times before. Make the incision and use the plastic tubing to evacuate the blood from around his heart," he said calmly.

He could see her hands shaking as she did so. Her arm had to have been hurting considering the un-ideal reduction of the displaced joint. As she made the first shaky cut, Mark's eyes flew open, a scream bubbling from his chest. Rather than letting those screams escape, Meredith held him down as Alex covered his mouth with a jacket he found on the ground. Cristina followed Alex's directions perfectly until they saw the blood flow out from the tube and down onto the ground. Slowly, Mark's color came back, his breathing steadied, and his eyes drifted shut yet again.

When she removed the tube, she leaned back against the cockpit of the plane and looked at Alex. The look shared said everything they couldn't. The two were too stubborn to admit their friendship outloud, to thank each other, to tell each other that they really did care. Even in this situation, it wasn't something the two would do. Both were too stubborn. Meredith stood, leaving the two with their mutual look of understanding to sit with Derek again. As the sun set, Alex sent a silent prayer, begging God to help them.