When Jones finally opened her eyes she knew she must be dead. Instead of the warped wooden walls of the small hut and the soulless eyes of her attackers, she was now surrounded by green, lots and lots of green.

As she squinted into the light she also took note of the weather. The whole of England had been overcast for weeks but here there was sunlight and although the weather was cool and damp, it was nothing like the musty feeling that had overtaken the small hut.

Cautiously, Jones tried to sit up but found herself pinned to the ground by a mass of dead weight. Looking down she immediately saw the source of the weight. "Fred?" she hissed. "Fred?" But she got no response. Carefully, she managed to work her way out from under his twisted form to crouch beside him. "Shit, shit, shit," she muttered to herself as she struggled to roll him over.

Seeing Fred still in such a bad state brought the realization that she was in fact not dead just, somewhere else. How that had happened was a mystery that she would have to investigate further later on but for the moment she needed to focus on Fred.

"Oh god Fred," Jones moaned as she took stock of his visual injuries. "What did they do to you?"

The ginger's blood drenched face was rapidly swelling and blackening and Jones had little doubt that he had a broken nose. Knowing that was likely to be the least of their problems, she moved down his front and lifted his shirt looking for signs of cracked or broken ribs and internal bleeding.

Jones let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. While at least two of his ribs were most definitely either cracked or broken he had no signs of internal bleeding and although shallow and hampered by his broken nose, he was breathing fairly steadily so there was little chance of a punctured lung. Continuing her examination, Jones also discovered that Fred's left ankle was broken along with a nasty knot on the back of his head and a number of gashes that were bleeding freely.

Without pausing to check on her own injuries, Jones began to treat Fred as best she could. Although it was chilly in their location, she decided to cut Fred's shirt into strips to bind his ribs.

Sloughing off her own jacket and putting it under his head, she went to work calling on all of her first aid training to get them through. After what felt like hours, hampered by the painful tremors and sense of intense vertigo that occasionally wracked her own body, Jones let out an exhausted sigh and sat back on her heels to survey her handy work.

After binding his ribs, Jones had managed to set and splint his ankle as best she could by using sticks and vines to immobilize it. She had also managed to reset his nose, which was indeed broken, so that he had begun to breathe more normally. She had never been so thankful for someone having a concussion. She knew very well just how painful resetting and binding broken bones could be and was thankful Fred had been unconscious through it all.

Rolling out the kinks in her neck and ignoring the screaming pain radiating throughout her entire person, Jones decided it would be best to stake out their surroundings a bit better. She hadn't wandered far from Fred since arriving in the forest, only going so far as to cut vines and collect sticks for his splint.

After checking Fred's pulse and breathing once more, Jones staggered to her feet and began to haltingly walk a perimeter around the small clearing they had landed in, stopping every twenty paces to listen to her surroundings. She had hoped to hear the sounds of a highway or even some herd animals, letting her know that there was some sort of human settlement nearby but her ears were met only with the sounds of the forest.

Disappointed that help wouldn't be easy to find, Jones resigned herself to the fact that they would most likely be spending at least one night in the woods and began to think about finding shelter near where Fred lay since there was no way she would be able to move him any real distance on her own.

What followed were several hours of heavy manual labor, made more difficult by her own untended injuries. Jones struggled to collect fallen branches and various vines and boughs before lashing them together to construct a rough lean-to. Once the crude shelter was complete, she shifted her focus on building a fire. Finding nothing on her that would make lighting a fire easy, she decided to search Fred's pockets for anything that might help and was pleasantly surprised to discover a decoy detonator in his jacket pocket.

Prying it apart carefully, Jones was able to disable the detonator and rewire the inside so that it set off sparks rather than exploding. Holding it carefully over the wad of kindling she had collected, she was soon rewarded with a small flame that she concentrated on keeping alight. Before long, she had a roaring fire going that was sure to keep off the chill during the quickly descending night.

Knowing that the fire might be the only thing keeping them alive through the night, Jones resigned herself to a long night of tending to it until the dawn when she would have to get up and search for water and food to sustain them.

With a pained wince, she settled down under the lean-to and made sure Fred was secure in his bed of leaves. While it was certainly not the most comfortable thing in the world, Jones knew that he would need to stay as warm as possible while he healed from his injuries and as there wasn't much else available she had been forced to use what they had.

Lying down close to her companion's side, Jones pressed herself against the unconscious man's side in an attempt of share her body heat. As the inky darkness of the forest closed in around them, Jones allowed her mind to wander back over the events of the day and soon found that the sheer number of who, what, how, and why's were so staggering that she was liable to go mad if she didn't focus on what she knew and start looking for answers.

Shifting herself carefully back away from Fred, she crawled toward the fire and cleared a place in the dirt to record her thoughts with a nearby stick.

"Alright," Jones said aloud, "what do I know?"

Deciding a list was the best way to go, Jones began to scrawl out the facts. One, two wizards and a witch were able to break through Fred's protective spells. Two, one wizard's name was Rookwood and the other's name was Travers. Three, they want to kill her. Four, they said they had killed her family.

She had no doubt in her mind that it was not her girls they were referring to since they were so well protected. She knew in her bones that they had murdered her parents and young siblings in their home years before.

Jones hung her head and let loose a gut wrenching sob. Now that she had time to think, the fact she had just been tortured by her family's murders came to the front of her mind. It was all she could do not to scream out loud.

After her accident, the muggle detectives had come to the hospital and told her that her family had been killed by a gas leak and that had never sat well with her. For over a decade she had doubted them something about the entire situation had seemed wrong to her and now she knew why. They had been murdered while she was away but she didn't know why. What had her harmless muggle parents, or her siblings who had only really been little more than babies when they died, ever done to warrant being murdered by such sadistic wizards?

After allowing herself to cry out some of the hurt, Jones focused on regulating her breathing and bringing down her heart rate. Without any source of water the dehydration crying would bring wasn't worth it she rationalized. Instead, Jones tried to turn her focus back toward Fred and making it out of their situation alive.

She still had no idea where they were so, in attempt to gauge their position, she cast her eyes skyward in an effort to recognize familiar constellations. After studying the heavens for what seemed like hours but was more likely only a few minutes, Jones knew two things for certain. One, they were still in the Northern Hemisphere and two, judging by the surrounding foliage, the time the sun had set, and the temperature of their surroundings, they were probably somewhere in North America although she had no idea how that was possible since Fred had been unconscious during their attack so the thought of him having apperated them to their current location was a bit hard to believe.

Morning dawned early in the forest and Jones fought to keep off the chill by curling herself closer around Fred trying to share some warmth. Had it not been for the fire she had tended to all night, there was no doubt in her mind that they would have frozen in their sleep since they had nothing other than their light fall jackets to keep them warm.

As the light spilled more determinedly into the leafy clearing, Jones stretched before struggling to sit up and inspect Fred for any injuries she might have missed the night before as well as any sign of infection setting in.

After giving him a thorough check up, Jones turned her focus toward ensuring their survival for as long as they were trapped in this forest. While feeding the fire, Jones began to plan out how she would go about finding food and water.

Water, it turned out, wasn't an issue. The sheer number of ferns and moss on the trees spoke of a region that saw large amounts of rainfall and had an abundant water supply. It wasn't more than five minutes before Jones discovered a clear stream about three minutes hobble from their campsite.

It was late-October and while berry season had largely past, Jones was still able to spot several bushes of late season blackberries and spent a good deal of her morning collecting an adequate number of berries. She also managed to unearth several truffles and edible roots.

Her foraging was slow as she returned to the campsite every half hour to check on Fred and tend to the fire. After taking a brief rest to eat some of the berries, Jones collected a number of springy branches, vines, and sharp rocks. As she began to build a number of basic snares, she thanked her lucky stars for the survival classes she had been forced to attend while working as a wildlife biologist, before the bear attack.

While the sun was directly overhead, Jones set her snares and went back to the campsite to work on hollowing out at least one of the old pieces of wood she had found to hold water since she had no hope of weaving a watertight basket of any sort.

Jones had been chipping away at the soft center of an old hunk of wood when she heard a pained moan behind her. Dropping the wood and the sharp rock she had been using, she jumped to her feet and spun around in one fluid motion, an action that she immediately regretted with a wave of severe vertigo hit her.

After steadying herself on a nearby tree and breathing through her nose for a moment she turned her head toward the source of the moan and saw that under the shade of the lean-to, Fred had begun to stir. Limping to his side as quickly as she was able, Jones carefully restrained his thrashing form in an attempt to keep him from injuring himself further.

"Shhh, shhhh, it's alright Fred," she soothed as she brushed a lock of wayward red hair off of his frowning forehead. "You need to relax."

Of course, being Fred, he did exactly the opposite. He began to thrash even more wildly, managing to throw Jones' weakened form off of him, before snapping his eyes open and letting out a blood curdling scream.

Scrambling back to his side, Jones ignored her body's protests and grabbed his face in her hands and looking directly into his eyes. "Fred! Fred!" she shouted as he began to hyperventilate, a look of abject terror on his face. "Fred, focus!" She demanded more forcefully, forcing him to look at her. "Your ribs are broken. You need to slow down your breathing and take shallow breaths." Of course, rather than slow down his breathing, Fred continued to hyperventilate.

"Dammit Fred," Jones said as she struggled to help him sit up before pressing herself up against his back and wrapping her arms around him. "You need to breathe with me, do you understand?" Fred nodded slightly and Jones began to focus on taking slow, shallow breaths. "In, and out," she directed slowly, "in and out." She continued to direct Fred's breathing for a few more minutes before his breathing fell into a more normal rhythm and his heart rate came back down.

"Wha-wha," Fred rasped, his throat too raw from dehydration and screaming to form real words.

"Shh," Jones urged. "Don't try to talk just yet. You need water before anything else."

With difficulty, Jones managed to shift Fred so that he was propped up against a nearby tree before bending down to retrieve the half carved bowl. "I'm going to fetch you some water, alright. I'll be back in a minute. Don't move, do you understand?" A very pale Fred nodded slightly before cringing from the movement.

Getting to the stream and walking carefully back took less than five minutes but to Jones they felt like an eternity. She was so thankful that Fred had woken. He had been unresponsive for so long she had begun to fear that he had perhaps suffered a severe brain hemorrhage from the blow to the head he had received.

"Slowly, slowly," Jones urged as she helped Fred sip at the water before withdrawing the bowl from his chapped lips and setting it aside.

"Mo-more," Fred croaked as he tried and failed to reach for the water.

Jones shook her head. "You can have more in a little while. You haven't eaten in days," she explained. "If I give you more now you'll just throw it up and you'll be even worse off than you are now."

Fred gave her a disgruntled look but didn't protest. Instead he studied his companion for a few moments. "Who?" he croaked finally.

"I'm not sure who attacked us," Jones replied as she sat herself across from him and crossed her legs. "I've been trying to figure that out," she gestured toward the long lists of questions and facts she had scrawled on the ground near the fire.

Fred appeared to be confused and shook his head slightly. "No," he rasped, "who're you?"

Jones couldn't hide the shock on her face. "Who am- who am I?" she gestured toward herself and struggled to keep the panic out of her voice. "Fred, you don't know who I am?"

Shaking his head again, Fred began to peer around the campsite as though looking for someone. "George?" he asked confused.

Closing her eyes tightly, Jones brought her hands to her face and tried not to cry in frustration. "This isn't funny," she scolded after deciding this was just one of Fred's stupid jokes. "This is really serious Fred we're in a lot of danger."

Fred looked back at her bewildered. "Oh god, you're not faking are you?" Jones moaned after a moment of trying, and failing to stare him down. "You really don't know who I am. Shit!" She got up and began pacing around the small clearing while Fred watched her with wide eyes.

Everything had just gotten so much worse. Now not only was she trapped in an unknown forest somewhere in North America, she was stuck with a severely injured man with no memory of who she was and no way to get home.

"Ok," Jones said as she turned back toward a startled Fred, "ok. We're alright, we're going to be alright," she repeated over and over again although she didn't know who she was trying to reassure more, the man who apparently had no idea what kind of danger they were in or herself.

Sparing a glance at the befuddled man, Jones stopped her pacing and tried to regain some sense of calm. "Ok I can do this," she breathed turning toward her companion. "Fred what's the last thing you remember?"

Fred furrowed his forehead before answering. "I- I remember," he paused, "I remember snow."

"Um, okay," Jones said slowly, "well I guess that explains why you don't remember me if the last thing you can remember is snow. I haven't known you long enough for it to have snowed yet. Here, have some more water," she urged before helping him take a sip. "Uh, what else do you remember?"

Fred shook his head. "It's fuzzy," he croaked letting his eyes flutter shut before they flew back open moments later. "Skye."

"Sky?" Jones asked warily turning her gaze upward, fearful of their tormentors tracking them to wherever they were.

Fred shook his head. "Not sky, Skye," he corrected.

"I'm not sure…" Jones trailed off and Fred huffed in frustration.

"S-k-y-e, my girlfriend Skye," he groaned.

"Your-your," Jones sputtered wide eyed, "your girlfriend? Since when do you have a girlfriend?"

"Who are you?" Fred asked again pressed ignoring her question about his relationship status.

Still shocked by Fred's mention of his girlfriend, Jones didn't immediately reply much to Fred's irritation.

"Where's my wand?" Fred demanded as he struggled and failed to get to his feet. Instead he collapsed back onto the forest floor with a cry of pain and the small woman rushed to his side in an effort to help him get resituated.

"My wand?" he grunted again and Jones shook her head. Earlier that morning, she had checked his pockets and the area around them for any trace of the magical object and been shattered when she couldn't find his wand.

Frustrated by the whole situation, Jones rose to her feet, let out a frustrated scream and kicked the nearest rock into the forest. While she had been figuring out their strategy for survival the night before, she had counted on Fred eventually waking up and apperating them home in order to save them but without his wand and a case of amnesia, the chances of that happening were now nonexistent.

Listening to the rock crash through the foliage, she struggled to control her breathing and think rationally. She reached up to rub her temples and jerked her hand back with a hiss of pain almost immediately. Gazing down at her scraped up and dirt encrusted hands she was startled to discover they were sticky with blood.

"What the hell?" she grunted as she reached back up and began to tenderly feel along her hairline. "Crap," she muttered as she discovered that the blood was most likely flowing from what felt like a nasty gash across her forehead. 'Well', she thought, 'that explains the vertigo.'

Forgetting about Fred's presence for a moment, she began to inspect her own body for the first time since the attack. So focused had she been on Fred's injuries the thought had never crossed her mind to take the time to treat her own injuries.

Gingerly, she began to run her fingertips across the rest of her body and discovered a number of dark bruises and several gashes which could most likely have used a stitch or two. "Dammit," she grumbled as she peeled her beloved jacket off and allowed it to fall to the ground. Lifting the hem of her tee shirt she discovered a fair number of dark new bruises blossoming there as well. She was just about to start checking the rest of her body when she was distracted by a quiet gasp behind her.

Spinning suddenly on her heel, Jones found herself suddenly quite dizzy and had to take a few steadying steps to regain her balance. "What?" she asked a very wide eyed Fred worried that perhaps their attackers had found them.

"What happened to you?" Fred asked as he stared at her bared midriff.

Relieved that they were still alone in the relative safety of the forest, Jones furrowed her brow and looked down at herself, wondering if perhaps she had missed some more serious injury during her quick inspection but finding nothing.

"Um what?" She asked confused.

"Were you," Fred gulped, "were you tortured during the war?"

"During the-," Jones had to think about that for a minute before she realized he probably thought that she was a witch and that the war he was referring to must be the one in which he had also been badly injured and must be referring to her scars.

Jones shook her head, the thought of her treating her own injuries forgotten. "No, most of them are from an explosion a long time ago. I- well never mind that's not really important right now. So you said you remember snow?" she asked changing the subject rather than dwelling on the explosion that had covered up her families murders and almost claimed her life as well.

"Mm yeah, snow and Skye. She was telling me something important but I don't remember what. Why can't I remember?" He groaned closing his eyes. "Where's George?" he asked a moment later. "Maybe he'll know."

While Fred was thinking Jones had limped back over toward him and settled down against a moss covered tree. "He's not here," she replied then upon seeing the look of panic on Fred's face quickly added, "He's alright though. He wasn't there when we were attacked, we were alone. He was somewhere safe with Luna."

"Luna, Luna Lovegood, Loony Luna Lovegood?" Fred chuffed in disbelief. "Why in Merlin's name would Georgie be with her?"

Jones stared at him in disbelief for a moment before schooling her features into a mask of indifference. Given Fred's confused state telling him that his twin was actually married to and expecting a baby with someone he considered loony would probably not help so rather than create a scene Jones just shrugged.

"I think he mentioned helping her move some furniture around or something but it doesn't matter, he's safe, your whole family is safe. Now Fred, you've suffered a major concussion and I want to make sure you're doing alright. I need to ask you some questions for me, okay?"

Fred was silent for a moment as he considered the woman before him guardedly. He had learned during the war not to trust too easily and knew he should be slightly suspicious of this stranger but something in the back of his mind urged him to trust her. He tried to grasp onto the niggling sense of recognition he felt but it slipped away leaving him with only a vague impression that he knew this woman somehow. Reassured by the feelings of trust he was feeling, Fred agreed.

"Okay well first off do you know what month it is?" she asked.

"December."

Jones jotted a number twelve down in the dirt beside her. "And the year?" she prompted.

"Two thousand and eleven."

"Two thousand and- oh shit," Jones muttered the last part under her breath as she did the math. She had hoped maybe Fred had only been knocked back a year at the most but he had been knocked back over three years, it was no wonder he didn't remember her.

"Are you a healer?" Fred asked curiously trying to figure out how he knew this woman who seemed to be well acquainted with him.

"Mm, no, I'm just a um, a friend of uh Hermione's," she replied. "We were attacked by a group of psychos yesterday and somehow we ended up here, where ever that is. I'm Jones by the way."

Fred arched an eyebrow, "Jones?"

"I know it's weird. Anyway moving on. We need to figure out how to get back home but I'm not sure how without a wand. Any ideas?"

"Who attacked us?" Fred asked.

The young woman frowned, not liking his change in topic but decided to answer anyway. "I don't remember ever seeing them before but I wrote their names down, well the ones I heard anyway," she gestured toward a patch of scribbled dirt near the fire. "They never said the woman's name but the other two were Travers and Rookwood. What? What is it?" she asked alarmed, Fred had suddenly gone pale and looked like he was about to be sick. "Fred are you alright? What hurts?" she demanded as she hurried back over to his side and brushed the fringe back from his forehead.

Rather than answer, Fred began to visibly tremble and breath heavily. "Oh god Fred," she moaned helplessly. She was afraid he was going into some sort of shock. "Here, lay down," she urged as she helped him to do so. "Alright now just breathe, in and out, in and out. That's right. Just relax. In and out."

Nervously Jones monitored his racing heart rate while encouraging him to breath slowly. After a few tense minutes Fred's heart rate slowed to a normal level and his breathing became more normal, he had fallen asleep.

As he slept, Jones stayed close by his side, monitoring his vitals continuously. She had no idea what had just happened, all she knew for certain was that if things didn't improve soon they were in serious trouble. 'Perhaps,' she thought as she stared into the placid face of her sleeping companion, 'tomorrow will be kinder.'