I wandered through the jungle, rubbing my newly freed wrists, not really sure what I should do. I hadn't seen Mars since we crashed, so I guessed he was still unconscious somewhere. Which was perfectly fine with me.

"Excuse me," I heard a man's voice call and I turned towards him. A well-built man with close-cropped dark brown hair knelt on the sand, naked to the waist. Several intricate tattoos decorated his left shoulder and arm. "Have you ever used a needle?"

"What?" I asked, confused.

"Did you ever patch a pair of jeans?"

"I, um, I made the drapes in my apartment," I said uncertainly, not sure why he was asking me.

"That's fantastic," he said. "Listen, do you have a second? I could—I could use a little help here."

I walked towards him. "Help with what?"

He lifted his left arm and turned slightly, revealing a long gash along the back side of his ribcage, with dried blood encrusted around it. "With this." I winced. How I am I supposed to help him with that? I said to myself. I'm no doctor.

"Look, I'd do it myself, I'm a doctor," the man continued, "but I just can't reach it."

I finally found my voice. "You want me to sew that up?" I said weakly.

"It's just like the drapes," he said.

Except the drapes weren't alive and moving, I thought."But with the drapes I used a sewing machine," I explained, taking a step back.

"No, you can do this. I promise. If you wouldn't mind?" He gave me an earnest look, his forehead wrinkling, his expressive dark brown eyes pleading.

I took a deep breath. "Of course I will." I knelt down next to him.

The man looked relieved. "Thank you." He handed me a miniature bottle of airline vodka. I shot him a questioning look. "It's for your hands," he explained, and I obliged. "Save me some, for the, uh, the wound."

He handed me a sewing kit with a variety of colored threads. "Any color preference?" I asked him quietly, trying to lighten the mood a little.

He laughed shortly. "No. Standard black's fine." He poured the rest of the vodka over the wound, sucking in his breath sharply and wincing.

I hesitated for a minute, and then started stitching up the long, deep gash, which at least wasn't bleeding any more. "I might throw up on you," I informed him shakily, but he just shook his head. "You're doing just fine."

When I finally finished—it seemed to take ages—the man turned to me, putting his bloodstained shirt back on. "Thank you," he said, his eyes looking straight into mine, and he smiled lopsidedly.

Later that night, I sat at one of the fires next to the doctor, as he talked about the crash. "We must have dropped, maybe, 200 feet or so. I'm not sure…I blacked out."

"I didn't," I said. "I saw the whole thing. I knew that the tail section was gone, but I couldn't make myself look. And then the front of the plane broke off." I could remember the whole nightmarish scene: the oxygen masks dropping…the extreme turbulence…the sickening crunching of metal as the plane was ripped apart...

I shuddered at the memory, but was jolted back to the present when the man spoke again. "Well, the front of plane isn't on the beach. Neither is the tail. We need to figure out which way we came in."

"Why?"

"Because if we knew where we came in, we might be able to find the cockpit. If it's intact, we might be able to find the transceiver, send out a signal, help the rescue party find us."

I looked at him. "How'd you know all that?"

He shrugged. "I took a few flying lessons. Wasn't for me."

"If you're thinking about going for the cockpit, I'm going with you."

The man studied me with intense brown eyes. "I don't even know your name."

"I'm Kate."

He smiled. "I'm Jack."