Request

Chapter One

NOTE ON THE SERIES:

Since there are very few of you who have read my entire series, I'm only sticking to my orginal Boone background and Locke/Boone past connection. Oh, and I'm sticking with my thing with Sawyer's foster brother dying in the second tower, so there could be some kind of thing with him and Sayid. I'm still keeping my thing with Sawyer and Jack's dad, that is with the fight they had in the caves. For now, I'm keeping most of Sayid's backstory. Sorry for the confusion, but I always get new people and I don't want them to be confused. I don't know if I'll have the French woman in here, I think I will, but maybe not for a while. I'll shut up now and let you get on with the story.

Oh yeah, and when I did the drinking game, I had Kate's name not really being Kate, and I'm keeping it that way.

Jack felt sweat pour down his forehead as he counted to himself.. 'one, two, three, four, five' yep, they were all there. Placing the guns back down, he now checked for the amo. It was his normal rutine. Whenever he could, Jack would sneak out to his spot on the beach, though newly founded by Kate, and then sneak out here every morning to check on the case. It was parinoia, he knew, since he was the only one with the key, which he'd often get questioned about. He'd lie, of course, and say it was the key to his suitcase. There were a few smart ones, however, that caught this. Some remembered only seeing Jack with a duffel at the airport, and some with a keen eye knew that Jack had yet to find his luggage. Making sure the amo was still there, Jack removed the key from his kneck, and locked the case.

"Chasing after your hallucination again?"

Kicking the case back under the rock, Jack gripped the key tightly, and spun around, having jumped at the sound of Sawyer's voice. Sawyer was smirking, amused at having caught Jack at whatever he was doing, but the job was even harder for Jack, because he knew one suspicious move, and the cases' hideaway would be given away, which would be nothing but havock for Jack who would have to race against time to find a new place.

"What're you doing out here?" Jack asked casually, though part of him was actually curious.

Sawyer wasn't the type to volunteerily go out into the jungle, or to go out to get food. Actually, the most movement Sawyer had made was flipping pages in whatever book he was reading while waiting for the next round of meat. It was in a way humorous, because of all on the island, Sawyer seemed like the last person you'd think would spend his days reading.

"I wanted to show you something," Sawyer said, turning around.

After a few seconds of staring after him, wander what it could be that Sawyer would want to show him, he realized he was being left behind, and huried to catch up. Sawyer had stopped at the edge of the sand on the path that had led back to the beach camp. Jack wondered what he should be looking at as his eyes trailed the beach, watching normal people do normal things, or at least, normal by the laws of this island. Then he began to think that Sawyer was trying to pull some kind of prank on him. That was, until he saw her.

Her being the girl that Charlie and Hurley brought in the day before, right after the fall, right after the bridge..Jack shook himself out of it. He didn't want to remember that. All he wanted to remember was Kate and the help she offered him. And as he stared at the girl that sat on the edge of the shore as he had seen Kate do one too many times, knees brought up to her chest, hair flying being her and looking out into the horizon, Jack couldn't help but to note the striking resemblances between her and Kate.

"She woke up," Jack observed, watching her, "did you find out anything about her?"

"Her name's Alex," Sawyer informed him, "sound familar?"

"Yeah," Jack nodded, remembering, "the French woman's child."

"She's never seen any of us," Sawyer continued, "and she claims she's never been on a plane in her life."

When he saw that Jack was already deep into thoughs about the situation, Sawyer figured it was time for him to go.

"Have fun," he smirked before turning and leaving.

Jack conitnued to stare at the girl for another minute or two, wondering how to apoach her. Sitting ow with her hands wrapped around her knees, he concluded that the girl couldn't have been no older than sixteen, maybe seventeen. Beginning to plan what he was going to say, Jack walked towards her.

"Mind if I sit?" Jack said.

"Watever," the girl said, not giving him a single glance.

Closer to her, Jack saw that the girl had long brown hair like Kate's, and was normal sized for her age. The knuckles of her hands were scratched, and from the way her heal was rested against the sand, Jack guessed that it might've been swollen. Alex had changed clothes since yesterday, when she had been wearing some kind of black dress, like the kind that one would wear to a formal party. The ends had been ripped and the straps had hung loosly on her shoulders. Her left shoulder had a gash that was still there, dried and randomly scratched. She looked more torn up by herself than any of them did after the crash. But now, Alex wore a long, green skirt that covered her feet, and a black sleevless shirt she must've found that made the gash stood out like a mile.

"It's fine," Alex said, suprising Jack, "the gash is fine, it doesn't hurt."

"Just because it doesn't hurt doesn't mean that it's not infected," Jack said, feeling like a mixture between a parent.

Besides walk, he hadn't talked to someone younger than twenty in two or three months.

"It's fine," Alex repeated, "I'm..fine."

From how she said it, it seemed to Jack like she was trying to convince that to herself, and Jack began feeling bad for her. She had been thrown from who knows where into a group of forty plus survivors who had at least known where they came from. Well, save Claire, but that was an entirely different story on its own.

"Do you remember anything?" Jack said, curious though praying for a positive answer.

As sweet of a girl as Claire was, Jack didn't think that he could go through another memory loss, on top of what all he had to deal with himself.

"I remember not being on a plane," Alex said, turning and looking at Jack.

Now that he could see her face, he could see that she had a bruise that a scar was forming over on the right side of her forehead where it had hit against something. She hadn't done a thing to try to cover it up, not even with her hair, and that stood out to Jack.

"Then what do you remember?" Jack said, and then wished he hadn't as Alex turned away, staring back out into the ocean.

For a moment it seemed as though she was giving him the silent treatment, letting the wind blow around her hair as she stared into the blue horizons.

"I remember being on a boat," Alex said, staring out distantly, "I remember being out on the open ocean.. and I remember blacking out."

She turned back to Jack, trying to convince him with her eyes that she wasn't lying, thugh try as she might, Jack could see that she wasn't telling the complete truth. Busy trying to make something out of her story, Jack didn't hear the yells that had roused behind them, engaging into an arguement.

"Do they always act like that?" Alex asked him, looking over her shoulder.

"What-" Jack began as he looked behind him where Sayid and Sawyer were at it again, with a crowd of a little more than a half a dozen standing around them, and none seemed willing to break it up, "dammit!"

He stood up, and without saying anything to Alex, he left, leaving her to watch as he ran and tried to break up the fight.

"What the hell is going on?" Jack demanded, disgusted by the way that the men were acting.

The kid and the dog acted better.

"You tell me!" Sawyer said, shoving his hand out and opening it up to an object.

Jack's breath stopped as the sound faded around him. The other's eyes boar on him as he stared at the object in Sawyer's hand. An object he rcongize. An object he knew.

"What's going on-"

Spinning around, Jack came to face Kate, who had walked into the scene with curiosity but was now staring in horror at the object. Her object. The object she had risked her life and the lives of at least a dozen others for. The toy airplane.

"Found it with some wreckage," Sawyer said," storm must've blown it. Wonder whose it is."

No one answered him as Jack watched Kate, who was staring so deeply into the object, so lost in her own thoughts, that she hadn't noticed that everyone was doing the same, only to her.

"Allie, Allie wake up."

Allie Ryan, eight years old, felt her father shake her awake. She had finally fallen asleep in her dark room around nine-thirty, almost an hour past her normal bedtime. But tonight was different, because her father was going off to work tomorrow, and unlike all of the other kids at school, her father didn't have a normal job.

"Allie honey, wake up," her father repeated, shaking her awake.

Allie groaned as she felt the hot light of her pink bedroom lamp blind her eyes, and the feel of her father's arms sitting her up. She rubbed her eyes, wondering what was going on.

"What is it Daddy?" She asked, secretly angry at him for interrupting hre dreams.

"Daddy has to leave earlier," her father, Nicholas, said in regret.

"What?" She whine. "No-"

"They called me in a little while ago," Nicholas said, "Daddy has to go help somebody land a plane."

"But I'll miss you," Allie said as tears formed in her eyes.

"I know," Nicholas, who was called Nick by his wife and family, said, embracing his young daughter into a hug, her long, brown curls falling over his shoulder, "I'll miss you too, but you won't have to wait until August to wait for me."

Allie looked up at him, her sad eyes now opening to hope.

"What do you mean?" She asked, her sweet, innocent voice stinging his ears.

Nick let go of her and reached behind him, pulling an object out of a small, plastic bag. He reached in, and brought out a small toy military plane. His daughter, he knew, would never know exactly what it was, but he didn't care. Just the look in her eyes was enough for him. Bringing up her arms, he placed the plane into her palms, closing them over it as she cupped her hands into his, holding onto her.

"I have one of these at work," Nick explained.

"Does it fly?" Allie said, her eyes wide in wonder.

"Mine does," he said, chukling a little, "but I want you to keep this, and know that whenever you look at it and think of me-" he placed the plane that was held by both of her hands against Allie's heart, "know that I'll be thinking of you."

With that, he leaned forward and kissed his daughter on the forehead, and his hand fell to the shoulder of her night gown, where it lingered as he gazed her, watching as she stared at the plane.

"I love you," he said finally as she let him meet her eyes, "always remember that."

His hand slid off her shoulder, and Nick at last brought himself to leave the room, leaving his daughter staring at the plane.