Miracle

They didn't know it but when they stepped on that plane their lives changed forever.

It was 7.00 on Saturday morning and Lily and Jackson were at gate 13 in line to get on the flight from LAX to JFK Airport. They were flying to New York to go to a Hannah Montana concert and because Lily had turned 18 two days ago they were also going to spend the long weekend sightseeing and shopping. Miley, Robbie Ray and Oliver were already in NY, they had arrived the day before. Jackson and Lily had to fly on the Saturday because Lily had a family thing and Jackson had a shift at Rico's that Rico would not let him get out of.

Everything was going fine until five hours into the flight, 30 minutes before their expected landing time. All the lights went off and the engines stopped. As soon as it happened Jackson got up to find Lily as she had gone to the bathroom. By the time he found her the plane had already started going down. They went to the window of the emergency exit, what Jackson saw stunned him.

"The ocean."

"What?"

"Look, we're flying over the ocean."

"How can we be, we're supposed to be flying from LA to New York."

"I don't know; do you trust me?" The sight of the ocean had given him an idea

"Yes."

"Ok, here's what we're going to do, this plane is going down and I think the only way we are going to get out of this alive is to jump."

"To jump?"

"Yeah, I'm going to open the emergency exit and when we get down to a non-lethal height, we're going to jump out, ok?"

"Ok." Said Lily, clearly terrified

They did exactly that, it was incredible but somehow Jackson timed it so perfectly that the landing into the water barely even hurt. Jackson then did a scan of the horizon.

"Lily, we need to swim to that dot over there."

"What is it?"

"I don't know, all I know is it's not water."

They swam for what felt like hours and just before they got too exhausted to swim any further they made it to land. The dot turned out to be an island about two thirds the size of a football field. All it had on it was a grassy patch and two coconut palms.

Lily and Jackson spent the day gathering up anything that might be useful from the wreckage and looking for any other survivors; there weren't any.

That night after Jackson had built them a fire Lily brought up something they had both been thinking about.

"We shouldn't have crashed anywhere near an ocean."

"I know, something must have been wrong with the planes navigation equipment."

"They're not going to find us, are they? Their going to look along the flight path and we clearly went off the flight path." She said and began to cry

"And besides nobody usually survives plane crashes so everyone will think we're dead." She continued making herself more upset at this point Jackson pulled her to him

"Look, I know it seems hopeless but we just have to focus on staying alive for as long as we can, the longer we stay alive the more time that gives somebody to find us, and at least we have each other, right?"

"Yeah, you're right."

Lily and Jackson soon got into a routine on the island. Every morning they would wash in the ocean and Jackson would fish for food for them to eat. Most days he managed to catch one medium sized fish which they divided into three meals for two people. It wasn't much but it kept them alive. They also had coconuts. When they arrived the two palm trees had a total of ten coconuts between them, and they rationed them carefully as Lily had seen on the TV show 'Man Vs Wild' that coconuts and coconut milk can give you diarrhoea. The rest of the time was spent talking or swimming or finding uses for stuff from the wreckage. Lily gathered all the scraps of material she could find and sewed them into a blanket with some long braided leaves for thread. It was very useful as at night the ocean winds came up and could be very cold.

As the weeks passed, Lily and Jackson became less and less hopeful about being rescued and they hadn't been optimistic in the beginning. They had talked a lot about dying and had both come to the conclusion that they were going to die together, on the island. One night, after they had been on the island for three weeks, Lily decided to talk to Jackson about something that had been on her mind.

"Jackson, I want to talk to you about something."

"Sure, what is it."

"Ok, the thing is we're both pretty young, 18 and 20, and there a lot of things that we haven't experienced yet and now we won't get to."

"Lily, we could still…" he began trying to be optimistic but unable to be

"I know, there is like a less than one percent chance that we could be rescued but it's extremely unlikely."

"True, go on."

"So I've been thinking that if an opportunity comes up to do something we want to do before we die then we should take it, right?"

"Yeah, what did you have in mind?"

"Well, I'm…I'm a…I'm a virgin." She said worried about his reaction

"Lily, are you asking me to…"

"Yeah, I don't want to die not knowing what it feels like to make love." She paused embarrassed

"And I can't think of a better person to experience that with for the first time than someone I've had feelings for since I was fourteen." She added deciding on complete honesty

"Lily, why didn't you tell me you had feelings for me? You could have saved me the pain of having to hide my feelings for the last four years."

"I didn't know."

"What about Oliver?"

"He thinks I'm dead and in a matter of days, weeks if I'm lucky, I will be."

Hearing this Jackson kissed her. They began kissing and Jackson lowered her onto the sand. He moved on top of her and began kissing her stomach. Before he took things further he looked back into her eyes.

"Are you sure."

"Positive."

That night Lily lost her virginity and from then on they spent a lot of time on the island having sex. The thing was, for them it wasn't about the sex, they were in love.

They didn't know how but they managed to survive 9 more weeks on the island, living off fish, the occasional sea urchin and small rations of coconut. It had been exactly 12 weeks or 84 days, they knew because they had kept track by putting notches on a rock, when they heard it. The faint sound of an airplane, sounding like it was heading in their direction. Jackson heard it first. When he did he ran to Lily, who was sunning herself.

"Lily, Lily, come on, we have to get to the sign." The sign he was referring to was 50 or so rocks spelling out the word help in the sand, they had made it their first day on the island.

"Wave your arms so they can see us."

They jumped up and down for 10 minutes and plane saw them, it happened to be a seaplane and landed straight away. When they saw it landing they hugged and kissed; they couldn't believe it, they were going home.

The pilot was amazed by their story, the whole world knew about the disappearance of LA flight 125; it had been all over the news. The plane took them to Cuba, then the Cuban government arranged for them to be flown to LA. When they arrived in LA they were met by government officials and National Transportation Safety Board agents. They were taken to hospital and checked over; they were undernourished but otherwise ok. Once they were given the all clear at the hospital they were asked to give statements about what happened on the flight. Then the agents drove them home.

They stopped first at Lily's where Lily was told by the man in the house that the woman he had bought the house from lost her daughter and moved back to her home town to be with the only family she had left. Lily's mum had moved back to Denver, Colorado. Jackson said Lily could stay at his house until everything was sorted out. So then they were taken to the Stewarts house. When they arrived nobody was home, they thanked the agent who had driven them and Jackson found the spare key and let them in.

What Jackson and Lily didn't know was that the NTSB had called their families while they were being checked over at the hospital. Robbie Ray, Miley and Oliver were currently flying home from San Francisco, where Hannah had been performing.

The first thing Lily and Jackson did when they got inside was go straight to the fridge and cupboard. They made sandwiches, Lily had three and Jackson had four. Then Lily had an idea.

"You know what we haven't had in 84 days?

"What?"

"A hot shower."

"Oh yeah, lets go." He said already up off the couch. They both ran upstairs and turned on the shower. They were both so eager they just got in and stood underneath the water, for them it was heaven.

As they were stepping in Miley, Robbie Ray and Oliver were walking in the front door. All three immediately saw the kitchen was a mess and the two used plates and two empty cups on the coffee table. All three smiled; they were home.

"They must be upstairs." Said Miley and the three headed up.

When they got to the top of the stairs they could hear the shower going but could also see the bathroom door was open. They looked at each other and walked towards the bathroom. When they looked in they saw Lily and Jackson standing, completely clothed in scrubs, under the shower, kissing. All three of their mouths dropped open at the unusual sight, most of all Oliver's who was seeing his girlfriend of two and a half years, who he had thought was dead, kissing someone else.

Seconds later Lily and Jackson saw the three at the door. They both jumped out of the shower and, still soaking wet, gave everybody hugs. Robbie Ray told Lily that her mother was flying to LA as they spoke and that she could stay in the guest room for as long as she needed. Once Lily and Jackson dried off and got dressed the five of them sat down and Lily and Jackson talked about their time on the island.

Just over an hour and a half later Lily's mother arrived. She and Lily hugged and cried, so happy to see each other. Then they went on to the patio to talk. After about 30 minutes they came inside smiling.

"Mum is moving back, were going to live here in Malibu." Lily said to everyone. Hearing this Jackson got up from the couch and went over and hugged and kissed Lily, then her turned to her mother.
"Thank you so much Mrs Truscott, I don't know what I would have done if Lily had had to move, I love her." He said

"You're welcome, I'm just glad she had someone who cares so much about her with her on the island, thank you for taking care of her."

Life soon got back to normal, with a few exceptions. Lily was now with Jackson and she and her mother lived in a new house, funnily enough on the same street they used to live in before the crash. Five weeks after they returned Lily went to the doctor.

"So Lily what brings you to see me?" asked her doctor Dr Jacobson

"Well, I assume you heard about the plane crash I was in."

"Yes, I did, it's a remarkable story."

"You see, I was on the island a total of twelve weeks, and didn't have my period that entire time."

"Well, that can happen, the stress of the situation and lack of enough food can cause you to stop having periods."

"I figured that, the thing is, I've been back for five weeks now and I still haven't had my period, I just want to make sure nothing's wrong."

"Of course, well I'll run a few tests and we'll see if we can figure out what's going on, I'll send you up for a blood test now."

The following day Lily got a phone call from her doctor asking her to come in so they could discuss the test results. She went in that afternoon.

"Is something wrong?" she asked concerned

"No, actually everything's fine, you have a clean bill of health."

"Then why haven't I got my period?"

"You're pregnant."

"What?"

"You're pregnant, I don't know how far along but we can find that out with an ultrasound, we could do that now if you like." She said and Lily just nodded still too stunned to speak. They went upstairs where Lily lay on a table and lifted her t-shirt up. Dr Jacobson then put some gel on the hand held part and put it on Lily's stomach. After a few seconds Dr Jacobson turned from the screen to Lily.

"There you are, that's your baby." She said and pointed to the screen, Lily's eyes widened, she could see it. It actually looked like a baby; she could see its little arms, legs and everything.

"Wow, it's amazing."

"Interesting." Said Dr Jacobson too absorbed studying the ultrasound image to hear Lily's comment

"What is it." Asked Lily getting a little worried

"It's just if I were basing the age of your baby purely on it's size I would say it's only two months but because of its level of development, I'd say you're three months pregnant."

"Is it ok though right? Small but healthy?"

"Yes, it seems perfectly healthy just small. Well, let's go back to my office and talk, shall we?"

An hour later Lily was sitting on the couch at the Stewarts about to tell Jackson the news.

"What did you want to tell me?"

"Jackson…I'm pregnant…three months along."

"Wow, ok, well whatever you want to do I support you and love you." He said while stroking her hand with his thumb

"Jackson, I saw it, our baby on the ultrasound screen, I saw its nose, its arms, its legs, its little hands and feet, it was amazing, to see what we created, I want to have this baby, our baby."

"Ok then, looks like were going to be parents." He said smiling letting it show that he was glad she had made the decision that she had.

It was quite a night telling Robbie Ray, Lily's mum, Miley, Oliver and even Mamaw, who had come to stay for week, that they were having a baby. The two parents and Mamaw had strong objections to Lily having the baby but when Lily described the ultrasound to them the way she had to Jackson, they realised that Lily and Jackson were following their hearts and making the right decision for them.

For the next five months Lily attended high school by correspondence and one month before she was due to give birth she graduated. Jackson picked up his community college studies and some extra shifts at Rico's. The day before Lily was due; Jackson took her outside on to the patio.

"Lily, there's something I want to ask you." He said helping her to stand up from the chair

"Jackson…" she said as he got down on one knee

"Lily will you marry me?" he said as he opened the ring box he was holding,

Before she could answer he continued, feeling he needed to explain.

"I know we are saving all our money for when the baby comes, so I didn't get you a diamond because I knew you'd say that I should have saved my money for the baby but I had to get you a ring so it's a sapphire, your birthstone and it also matches your beautiful blue eyes."

"Yes." Was all she could say, so touched by his thoughtfulness.

The following day, her expected due date, at noon, she felt her first contraction. An hour later her water broke and Lily, Jackson, Robbie Ray, Miley, Oliver, who had come over for lunch and Mamaw, who had come to stay for the birth, left for the hospital, planning on meeting Lily's mum there. Three hours later Lily and Jackson's baby girl was born. A little while later everybody came into Lily's room to see the new arrival. Everybody had a turn holding her.

"Honey, she's beautiful." Said Lily's mum holding her granddaughter and wiping away a tear

"So have you though about a name?" asked Miley when it was her turn to hold the baby

"Yeah, we have actually." Replied Jackson

"Really? What?" asked Miley ash she carefully handed the baby to Robbie Ray

"Well, we thought about how we got here, what went through, what we and her survived. So we decided, her name is Miracle."