I know you all want to see what's going to happen now that Kate is back (and you will – soon!), but we're up to Catch-22 here, so I'm not all as in love with Jate angst as I was a few weeks ago. I tried to finish chapter 13, but ended up finishing chapter 1 of the long awaited Kevin story instead, so I hope that it's almost as good.

I was going to have him go to the bathroom or something like Bernard, but then I realised that it would be much cooler if I wove the mystery of what he was doing out of his seat into the overall plot. Everything fell into place after that, so I'm pretty excited.

I'm going to do my best to juggle both fics on top of my coursework, so please be patient, and review! That's always encouraging!

Chapter 1. Like A Dream

The last thing Kate remembered before she blacked out was the screech of metal as the tail was ripped from the plane. It had crashed then, she knew, but that didn't explain what she was doing alone in a tropical jungle.

Her back felt bruised from the rocks and bits of wood she could feel pressing into her skin through the fabric of her shirt, and her skull ached; when she put a hand to her hair, she could feel that it was matted with clumps of dried blood. There was a wound somewhere, but the pain made it hard to locate, sending ribbons of agony down into her eyes when she tried to sit up. Her legs were weak, but unharmed; she had to use a tree for leverage to stand, scrabbling at the bark with her bloody fingers until she found her feet.

Everything around her was still and silent: hyper-real, like in a dream. Looking around her at the untouched clearing, she was almost certain that if she tried hard enough, she would open her eyes to find Kevin's arms around her as he bucked her into her seatbelt, his lips brushing her ear as he whispered that they were almost home. It couldn't be real, because that meant…

No.

She was going to wake up soon, and then, when she told him about the nightmare, they would laugh about it and that would be that. They would catch a connecting flight back to Miami and everything would be fine. He would go back to work at the police station, and she would start trying to find a place for all of the linen and kitchen appliances that had descended on their living room since the wedding. She might even allow him to reopen the baby discussion, even though she knew it was unlikely that there was anything he could say to change her mind.

When the cabin failed to rematerialise, she wasn't sure what to do, so she started to walk. She couldn't hear any signs of life other than the birds, so she just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other until she woke up, or came across someone who could explain what was happening. She didn't really care, not when she knew it was all in her head, but it was the most interesting dream she'd ever had, so she figured she might as well go along for the ride. Kevin loved all of those B-grade diaster movies; he'd probably be a little jealous.

As dreamlike as it all seemed, though, the one thing that she couldn't convince herself was imagined was the pain in her head. That felt real, especially the way it didn't subside, worsening until she stumbled onto the beach, her skull throbbing so violently that she could hardly see. She felt like she was going to be sick, her stomach heaving as she struggled to focus on the movement in front of her; she could just make out a series of dark shapes before she lost consciousness again, a pair of strong male arms keeping her from pitching forward into the sand.

When Kate came to again, the warm brown eyes she found herself staring into weren't Kevin's, but those of a stranger, a man a few years older than her husband.

"Good, you're awake," he said, looking relieved as he knelt over her, setting aside a bloody rag. "Can you hear me?"

Her throat was parched, so she nodded, trying to sit up, the movement sending a jolt of pain through her skull. Giving up, she relaxed, letting her head come to rest on the balled up jacket the stranger had placed under it.

"Don't try to move," he instructed her gently, wiping his hands on the sides of his suit pants. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Kate," she managed to croak out, realising too late that it was the wrong one. She wasn't Kate anymore, she was Monica, Monica Callis – at least that was what it said on her passport. If her brain had been working properly, she would have told him that, but it was too late now to retract it.

Of course there was no way the stranger could know that this wasn't what she'd meant to say. "Okay, Kate," he said, giving her a friendly smile. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

She could see his hand, but it took her a moment to focus on the details, her eyes still bleary from waking up. "Four."

"Good," he agreed, his smile brightening as he reached for a water bottle. "You have a minor concussion, but other than that, you're doing pretty well," he told her as he unscrewed the cap, lifting it to her lips. "I want you to drink some of this, but not too much, okay?"

She wasn't sure why she trusted him, but she did, so she complied, coughing as she took a sip of the water.

When she was done, he set the bottle aside with the cloth. "You had me worried when you passed out like that," he continued, his brow furrowing slightly at the memory, "there was so much blood I thought you must have fractured your skull on impact."

Her earlier confusion returned to her then, and she squinted at him, trying to process this last comment. "Impact? What...?"

"The plane crashed," he explained, looking uncertain, as if afraid her concussion was worse than he thought. "You don't remember?"

"I remember, but that wasn't… it didn't… it was a dream," she stammered, her eyes pleading with him not to contradict her. She knew how stupid it must have sounded, but she wouldn't allow herself to entertain any other possibility.

"It wasn't a dream, Kate," he told her gently, his confused expression morphing into concern when she pushed his hands away, struggling to sit up.

"No, you don't understand," she said, scrambling to her feet, her eyes darting around wildly as she took in the beach, the jungle, what was left of the plane. "Kevin… my husband… he…" It had to be a dream. It couldn't be real, not when the word still sounded so foreign to her. They'd only been married for two weeks. She couldn't lose him, not yet, not after her mom and Tom. Life wasn't supposed to work that way.

"He what, Kate?" the stranger prompted her gently, taking hold of her arm to keep her from falling again. "Was he on the plane with you? Do you want someone to help you find him, is that it?"

She couldn't find the words to say what she really meant, what she was afraid that she meant, so she nodded.

"What does he look like?" he asked, a flicker of something like pity passing through his eyes. There were a lot of bodies on the beach and still in the plane. He thought Kevin was one of them. "I was down there before – maybe I saw him."

Cold fear invaded her insides, so she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath as she tried to picture him exactly as he was on the plane, instead of the way she was afraid she would find him, if she found him at all: his smile, his voice, the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he laughed.

"He's tall… taller than you, I think, I don't remember," she began once she was feeling calmer, but her voice shook as she tried not to cry. "He has brown hair and brown eyes… he's a cop," she added, even though she wasn't sure that he would see this detail as important. It probably wasn't to him, but that was who Kevin was: if he were alive somewhere, and unhurt, she knew that he wouldn't be one of the gawkers. He would be out there helping the other survivors like this man was.

"That's good, but you're going to have to narrow it down a little," he said, his brow creasing in frustration at her vague description. "How old is he?"

"Thirty-four... no, thirty-five. It was his birthday a couple of weeks ago," she told him; she could almost see the gears turning in his head as he matched faces to this information. No dice. "All of the guys I saw walking around down there were in their twenties, or much older. Does he have any scars, tattoos, piercings? Anything that would make him stand out in a crowd?"

When she shook her head, he added, his voice softer now, "I know this is hard for you, Kate, but it's important. What row were you in?"

She shuddered at the implication of his words, trying not to take them to heart. "Twenty-five, but he wasn't in his seat when we… crashed. He got up a couple of minutes before we hit turbulence. Said he'd be right back." But he wasn't. She bit her lip, trying to hold herself together at the realisation that it was probably her fault. He'd spent the last few weeks trying to make sure that their honeymoon was perfect: what if it was all because of one of his stupid surprises? She should have told him no. She should have told him to stay put, played the needy, co-dependent wife, instead of being so low maintenance all of the time.

"Do you know where he went?" the stranger said, squeezing her shoulder gently. "He might've sat down somewhere until it passed."

She shook her head again, tears sliding down her cheeks as the memory of the screams washed over her, followed by the tail ripping loose. It wasn't here on the beach with what was left of the fuselage. For all they knew, it was at the bottom of the ocean somewhere. "No, he didn't say," she whispered, so that he had to lean in to hear her. "But the last time I saw him, he was headed to the back of the plane."

Next chapter: The first night on the island. Kate learns more about Jack (starting with his name!) and he makes her a promise.