Two days ago, the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 were rescued after two years of being on that dreaded island which had become their home. At the moment though, they were all still in their celebration phase, and while mst of the girls were off window shopping, Charlie, Sawyer, Hurley and Jack were sitting in the bar in their hotel. Somehow, they had got onto the topic of past relationships that had gone sour, and were exchanging the stories while slightly drunk. It was no suprise that Sawyer had many more stories that the rest put together.

"I once dated a girl called Jessica-" He began, before Charlie cut him off.

"Hold up. Dated, as in relationship lasting longer than a week, or dated as in slept with and called once and only once?" Charlie asked.

"Six months." Sawyer said proudly.

"Long time for you." Charlie commented.

"Don't start." Sawyer warned, pointing a tipsy finger at him. "Anyway, I took her out for dinner, and was going to ask her to marry me."

Jack, who had been taking a drink from his pint at the time, gagged and choked. After a minute of coughing, he looked at Sawyer in disbelief. "Marry? You?"

Sawyer continued as if he wasn't affected by Jack's suprise. "I got myself so worked up about it that by the time it came around to asking her, and she realised what I was going to do, all I could say was 'can you pass the salt?' - Hey! It's not that funny!"

To Charlie, who had nearly fallen off his bar stool from laughing so hard, it was. He straighted up though, and feigned a serious face. "You're right, it's not that funny." For a moment, he kept his face straight, before it crumpled and he couldn't hold back his laughter. "It's hilarious!"

Sawyer shook his head. "You're drunk. Come on, your turn."

Charlie recovered from laughing. "You've barely made a dent in your list and I'm already running out."

"Stop stalling, Romeo."

"All right. When I was in college-" He began, but this time it was Sawyer who interrupted.

"You were in college?"

"As a matter of fact, I was an art-history major." Charlie said proudly.

"Art?" Hurley asked, clearly holding back a laugh. Sawyer was giggling childishly into his pint.

"I hated the subject but it was the only class they'd take me for. There was a girl that sat next to me called Leanne. She was the head cheerleader, most gorgeous girl in school, so all the big guys were after her. When I asked her for a date though, she accepted, so suddenly I was the college hot shot."

"Dude, how is this a disaster?" Hurley asked.

"The night before the date, I had a ton of homework to do, and I was up all night doing it. I drank so much coffee while I was doing it so I would be all right for the movie with her, but then a few hours before I was meant to meet her, it wore off, and I slept through the whole date."

Now it was Sawyer's turn to laugh hysterically - he had done some bad ones in his time, but he had never slept through a chance to get lucky. "Classic." Then his tone changed to serious, and he pointed an accusing finger at Jack, who before had been sitting quietly thinking to himself. "So what's the deal with you and Freckles, Doc?"

Again, Charlie had been drinking at the time, so he had nearly choked on his drink, and looked unfairly at Sawyer, mainly because he had wanted to ask them the same question. "Excuse me?" Jack spluttered. He realised now that Sawyer was taking advantage of his drunken state to get this out of him.

"Are you two...you know...together...jungle buddies?" Sawyer asked slyly.

"What sort of question is that?" Jack asked accusingly, with a brush-off laugh.

"So that's a yes then." Sawyer assumed.

"Look, we're not together, OK."

"But you want to be." Sawyer completed his sentence.

"Come off it, we've all seen you two sneaking between each others rooms." Hurley jumped in.

Jack knew that this wasn't for the reasons that Hurley suggested though. Kate was still terrified of being caught by the law, which is why he had been visiting her in the night. Not, as Sawyer had put it, to be "jungle buddies".

"Just say it." Charlie continued.

"No." Jack said determinedly.

"Because..." Sawyer was equally determined to get an answer out of him as Jack was to covering it up.

Jack sighed. "Because nothing can make us go back to where we were before we got rescued." He surrendered.

"Doc," Sawyer started. "Have you ever heard of something called tough love?"

Jack thought for a moment with a drunk expression on his face. "Does it involve dressing up?"

Sawyer resisted the urge to throw his head down on the bar. Trying to reason with Jack when he had been drinking was never a good idea, but usually the only way to get something out of him. "Let's try a different approach..."

Jack shook his head. "No. There's no approach, Sawyer, it's over, remember."

"You know, Jack, for something you've been holding on to for so long, you're pretty quick to let it go." Sawyer pointed out, actually forgetting to give Jack a stupid nickname.

Jack stopped midway between taking another drink. "I can't control her anymore than I can control the weather." He took another mouthful of drink as he had intended to.

Sawyer sighed again. "Jack, you've always seen everything from every angle. But now you can't see the simplest thing from any angle!"

"Are you saying that I'm stupid?"

"Either that or it's Chinese Year of the Dodo." Sawyer muttered under his breath. "Can't you tell that she wants you as much as you want her?"

"You can't just assume that." Jack pointed out. "Kate's a woman, and when a woman is ready to, well, when she's ready, she'll let me know."

That was one of Jack's good qualities. Even though he was hopeless with most relationships, he respected women, and there was no higher woman in his books than Kate. "How?"

"Well, she'll give me a sign or something." Jack said.

"Like what?"

Jack thought for a moment. "I dunno."

"Maybe she'll put an announcement in the Sunday Sport." Charlie said, picking up an abandoned newspaper from the bar beside him, and opening it up.

"Oh yeah," Sawyer said pointing into it. "Here it is. Doc loves Freckles, Freckles loves Doc, DEAL WITH IT."

"I don't lo-" Charlie cut Jack off before he could finish that sentance, because he knew that he would regret it if it said it.

"You're just in denial." He countered.

Jack shook his head. "I'm not in denial, Charlie."

"Yes you are. You're just denying that you're in denial." Even though he had a point, Charlie was making this conversation very complicated.

"I'm not denying that I'm in denial." Jack said.

"If you're not denying that you're in denial, then you're admitting that you're in denial."

Jack stared at Charlie for a moment, trying to find sense in what he had just heard. "Look, why should I deny being in denial? I never said I was in denial. YOU said I was in denial and don't you deny it."

"Why can't you just admit it to yourself?" Charlie asked.

"Admit what?" Jack said, even though he knew what they all meant.

"That you love her!" He said rather loudly to get through to him, only it got through to the people around them more than it did to Jack at first.

"I don't..." He stopped mid sentance and started infront of him, not really seeing the racks of alcohol before him. He couldn't say it. He had said it in his head, trying to convince himself, but to say it out loud, was just simply impossible.

"See," Sawyer said slyly. "You can't even say that you don't. That's got to mean something."

"I just.." Again, he stopped.

"Just what, Jackass?"

Jack spoke quietly, not liking having to talk about his feelings, but secretly glad that he had a chance to. "I want to throw myself in front of every car I see, because then I might stop thinking about her."

"Ah." Sawyer said, his plan had worked, and he downed the rest of his drink.

"I know that I care about her, and I like her a lot, but we had something special together before we were rescued." He continued, not caring whether they were listening or not. "Now, we haven't got anything." Kate was so worried that she would be caught, that she had ended it with Jack on friendly terms so that he wouldn't be weighed down with her when she was caught.

"Sounds like she needs reminded of the good times." Sawyer said.

"How do I do that?" Jack asked.

Sawyer smirked and thought for a moment. "I've got a plan."