Wheels Down| Spencer Reid

5

I've done the math. I'm missing at least an hour of time between that normal conversation and when I woke up.

It's bugging me. I know it shouldn't be, but it is. I pretended to be asleep so JJ would leave me alone. I'm the only one awake. Everyone else is asleep in the cabin, but I decided to make sure nothing else had happens.

I can't let another one of us die. I just can't.

Matt Simmons, Emily Prentiss, and Luke Alvez have concussions. Despite what one may believe, it's actually not bad for someone to sleep with a concussion as long as they aren't totally out of it. I think Luke's is the worst. He was having a little trouble walking when I found them.

It has started to hit me that I have no fucking clue what I'm doing. If we're careful, we can make our snacks last us a few days, maybe.

But we have one bottle of water. I decide we need to find a water source. Content with having a half-plan, I lay my head down on the couch. I can sleep.

-

It's bright and early, and I'm the first one awake. I glance over at JJ and Emily, who are huddled near eachother on a blanket on the floor. We managed to find two blankets when we looked through all of our luggage, thankfully.

I wake up JJ. She rolls over and groans, but when she opens her eyes she glares at me. "I'm going to go look for a water source. I'll be back," I say.

"Spence, that's stupid. You can't leave alone."

She's not wrong. It is stupid, but I feel like I need some time to myself. I need to think through what happened on that plane. I think they're hiding something from me.

"Like I said, I'll be back," I say, a little more sternly. I grab my messenger bag off of the ground and put the strap around my neck.

"I'm coming with you," JJ says.

"Fine," I say. Honestly, though, I feel like I dodged a bullet. I don't want to admit it, but I've been acting fairly impulsive lately. Maybe it's something about our absurd situation that makes me feel like every decision I make will be my last?

"We should at least leave a note," I say. I pull a notebook and pen out of my bag and scribble a small explanation onto a page. I tear it out and leave it on the table.

"Let's go," JJ says.

We start walking. The woods really do all look the same. The trees are dense and thick, and the terrain is rocky and full of hills. The plane didn't crash in a clearing; it landed on a few trees. They were thin and got crushed by the plane's weight.

"So," JJ begins. We've been walking in silence for a while now, "How are we going to get out of here?"

I'm used to always knowing the answer to complicated questions, but for the first time in so long, I'm clueless. "I don't know," I reply.

With our current supplies, we're screwed. There's no way they wouldn't know we're missing. We were supposed to be at the station almost twelve hours ago. After the first hour Garcia would have checked on our flight.

Garcia. She's probably worried sick. And JJ and Matt- they have families. Rossi did, too.

I'm trying to stay on the positive side of things. I'm not a positive person. Anyone who's been through what I have wouldn't be, but right now I can't afford to imagine all of the horrible ways this could end.

My watch says it's noon. It's getting hot, and because JJ and I have been walking for a while now, I suggest we take a break. Despite how many trees there are, they don't give off very much shade.

We sit down under a larger tree that has some shade under it, and though it's still hot, it feels a lot nicer. "Spence?" JJ asks.

"Yeah?"

"How long will it be until they find us?"

I hate this question. I wish I knew, but I just don't. Whatever GPS is on that jet is either fried or the signal is dead because we're in the middle of fucking nowhere.

"Let's just keep walking," I say. JJ gives me a look that I can't quite describe. I miss when things were simpler between us. Our friendship has been a mess lately, but we never had time to process it because of, well, this.

We decide to head back to the jet after a good half-hour of walking. We found nothing. No water, and nothing edible, but we can't keep walking forever. It's getting hotter.

I'm already starting to feel nauseous. If any of us gets heat stroke we'll have no way to treat it. We have no water or ice or anything cold. The water we do have has been sitting inside the jet, which isn't much cooler than outside.

I don't know which route the jet took, so I can't even narrow our location down to the state. We could be anywhere in the continental US and I wouldn't know any better.

All I know is that we're somewhere hot and dry.

I don't know if we can survive here.

A/N: I think I'm almost done writing this?