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"I walked slowly out of the jungle towards the sound of the ocean. I was still rubbing my wrist while feeling somewhat disoriented. My eyes were damp from tears that were escaping without permission. I kept pushing them down but it was hard after the horror I witnessed. I was shaken up. I heard screams and chaos from somewhere along the beach to my right but couldn't see where it was coming from."

"Instead of heading straight there, my feet were leading me in another direction, as if they had a mind of their own. I emerged onto a deserted beach and heard someone call out. His voice startled me. It was a kneeling man, handsome, muscular with no shirt on. He was also in a lot of pain. He had an unusual tattoo with a prominent number "5' on his left shoulder and below that, a wide, bleeding cut across the left side of his back. He asked me if I ever used a needle."

- Kate's Clean Slate, Chapter 3

"Invisible threads are the strongest ties." -Friedrich Nietzsche

"Excuse me." He called out, his voice startled me. I was still trying rubbing my wrist, trying to hold back tears that were escaping, my breath hitching some. I was trying to figure out what the hell just happened. How did I end up going from the broken plane, hurtling towards my death to laying on the jungle floor with minor bruises and scratches?

I saw everything that happened. So many people died. Many people were sucked out of the plane from seats in front of me after the tail of the plane broke off. I tried not to picture their faces and ages as they flew by and we continued to plummet to the ground. I think we rolled at some point. It's still unclear.

I looked to see where the voice came from. I saw a kneeling man, handsome and muscular, obviously in a lot of pain. He had a prominent tattoo on his left shoulder with the number "5" on it. Below that, there was a deep, bleeding cut that started on his left side, near the bottom of his ribcage, extending to his back. I was standing several yards away, still rubbing my wrist.

"You ever use a needle?" He made sewing motions with his right hand and was winded when he spoke.

I started walking towards him slowly, not quite understanding why he asked me that. "What?"

He made the motion again, clarifying what he meant. "Did you ever . . . patch a pair of jeans?"

Sewing, I told myself. "I, um . . ." I closed my eyes to clear my head a bit, trying to stuff down the horror. I usually can push my feelings down but they were surfacing. "I made the drapes in my apartment." That was one time with help. I knew how to do a basic stitch with sewing but that was the extent of my skill. He obviously needed a doctor.

"That's fantastic!" His face registered some relief. "Listen, do you have a second? I could use a little help here." A second? Minute? What did it matter? I didn't even know if I was still alive or if this was all an illusion.

I gave a slight nod and walked over to him. He was still panting, but I realized he wasn't out of breath. He was panting from the pain, trying to control it.

"Help with what?" I asked. I was hoping it wasn't the cut. My brain, still clearing, thought that might be it.

He raised his arm and showed me the full injury. "With this." On closer inspection, it was worse than I thought. The cut ran deep and blood was oozing out. I closed my eyes and turned my head slightly, feeling nauseous. I had to take a few moments. I looked at his face after. He had continued to talk.

"Look, I'd do it myself, I'm a doctor, but I just can't reach it." He needed a doctor. He was a doctor. What were the chances we'd have a doctor on the plane, much less that he would be cut up so badly, or even alive, same as me? I had decided it wasn't an illusion after getting a good look at his wound. It was bordering on gory.

"You want me to sew that up?" I asked. I was having a hard time believing that. I would have to use a needle to sew him up, and probably hurt him more in the process.

"It's just like the drapes, same thing."

"No, with the drapes I used a sewing machine." I interjected, my brain automatically responding, trying to get out of this.

He tried to convince me. I looked at his face more carefully. He had wide scratches on the side and his eyes were light brown, pleading with me and breaking down my resistance. "No, you can do this. I'm telling you. If you wouldn't mind." He was so polite, despite the fact he was in agony. I couldn't say no.

I thought for a moment, took a deep breath and answered quietly. "Of course, I will."

"Thank you." He leaned down and picked up a bottle and handed it to me. I looked at it in confusion. It was vodka. "It's for your hands." He explained. I opened it and began to pour a little in my left hand, which was cupped. I planned to rub both of my hands together. "Save me some for me . . . for the wound." I looked up at him. That was going to sting like hell.

There was a sewing kit on the ground. It was one of those larger, travel sewing kits you can get from a drugstore. It had 6 spools of colors inside, a small pair of plastic scissors, paper measuring tape, a few needles on a thin piece of cardboard, and one of those metal loops that help thread the needle. My stomach still felt queasy. I tried to ignore it.

"Any color preference?" I didn't know which one to use.

He started laughing and shook his head. He seemed a little calmer. "No. Standard black."

His laughter was short-lived. He poured vodka on the wound, made pained sounds because it stung badly. He turned away, wincing and gasping then leaned over. I watched him, concerned and worried. I was worried about him. I was also worried about how I was going to do this.

I decided to take off my long-sleeved shirt and tie it around my waist to get my sleeves out of the way. I was wearing a white tank top underneath. I also pulled my hair back in a messy bun with a hair elastic to get it out of the way. The ocean breeze was blowing tendrils of hair in my face and mouth before I did that. He had a little vodka left and poured it on my palms to clean them again so I wouldn't infect the wound.

I didn't say much. I was trying to steel my nerves again, but it was hard. The anger and resentment that fueled my ability to harden myself weren't there. Instead, I focused on threading the needle. I didn't need the metal loop for help. I pulled off a long piece of black thread, threaded the needle, centered it, and checked the length before cutting. I didn't know if it was enough, but I didn't want the thread to tangle. It would if I had too much thread on the needle. I winced at the thought of that. Cutting the threads, pulling them out to redo them on skin because I knotted or tangled them up wasn't an option.

He was trying to control his pain level. He seemed nice. How could he be so polite and in so much pain? I saw his cast-aside suit coat and shirt. Both were torn by something wickedly sharp that cut him too. He wore expensive suit pants and shoes. I frowned a bit. He belonged in an office or hospital, not on a deserted island.

I asked him in a quiet voice how to do this. I was ready to start. He handed me a lighter and told me to sterilize the needle. I lit it as instructed, staying away from the thread. My hands shook a little. I tied a quick knot at the end of the thread, not sure if it was necessary but he said that was good. I was kneeling the whole time and made my way around to the wound, ready to stitch.

He guided me through the first through stitches, wincing every time I pierced his skin. I felt horrible about inflicting pain on him. Despite that, his voice was commanding and gentle, guiding me patiently step-by-step. I had to start a quarter inch from the edge of the wound and put the needle through. I then had to connect the flap to the other side by aligning it, then inserting the needle a quarter inch away from the end of that wound and pull the thread through.

I didn't know how deep to go. He said about as deep as the cut itself, but don't pull the stitch tight when I brought the two pieces of skin back together. They should barely touch underneath the thread. I breathed out in relief after the first one was done.

He was encouraging me, which I would have found odd except that he's a doctor. It helped. I wasn't going to leave him, despite my impulse to bolt. This was one of the hardest things I have done in a long time. I had no skill and was afraid of messing up. All I had was the determination to help and his voice.

His voice is what really kept me anchored to the spot. He guided me through the second stitch. After it was done, I felt slightly more confident but that doesn't mean a lot. It took some residual shaking out of my body and hands. I asked if I was hurting him with the stitches or going too slow. He looked back at me and shook his head. He said no. I was doing perfect.

I started on the third stitch, knowing where to start and where I was going to connect it. I didn't want to mess up and for him to look at the scar later and hate me. I was intimidated that I was sewing up a doctor, a handsome doctor to boot. I tried not to show it, but it was the truth.

The wind had picked up a bit and it was cooling down. The sun was getting lower and I only had a limited amount of daylight left. I tried not to think about it. I was going to finish this.

It had taken a while for me to work my way across his back. We still didn't talk much but there was no need. I had to focus. He needed to control his pain. There was no empty, awkward silence between us. I knew instinctually we were working as a unit to get this done. I had my role, he had his.

I can't say my stitches were perfect, but they looked like they would hold him together to start the healing process. I was just hoping not to mar his sculpted torso.

I started to feel queasy again. I was getting to a part where the cut was the deepest along his back. He was panting softly, breathing through as I stitched. It was a lighter, quieter version of the breathing they teach for childbirth at the Lamaze classes.

"I might throw up on you." I warned him. He didn't have enough vodka left to sterilize everything if I did unless he had another bottle stashed somewhere.

The doctor shook his head. "You're doing fine." He laughed, but I could hear some tears in his voice. I glanced up from my work when he said that, catching a glimpse of the side of his face. His cheek was wet from the pain. He wanted me to keep going.

Fine was relative term since he had no idea what I was doing back here without a mirror. I wonder if that was hard for him, not getting to see what I was doing. He had placed a lot of trust in me, a random woman that had wandered out of the jungle with the most basic of sewing skills.

The doctor tried to start a conversation. "You live in New York?"

I hoped we wouldn't start talking about anything personal. I was trying hard to hold back tears and the horror of the day. I swallowed. "I used to . . . I've been in New Zealand. About a year." It was true. I've been all over trying to get away. I swallowed again, trying to continue stitching. I didn't want to think about running. I didn't want to lie or think about why I was on that plane.

Jack winced with each stitch. ". . . How come?"

I tried to respond. "Oh, I just . . . had to get away." Then it really hit me. I couldn't do this. This day, the people flying out of the plane, being sucked into the sky to plummet to their deaths, the ejection from the plane . . .

Something snapped in me and I started to cry. It all caught up with me. I was weeping and couldn't stop myself. I covered my eyes with the back of my hand so I didn't get it contaminated and turned my face away from him in shame. I could feel him looking at me, watching me lose it. It made me feel worse. I was stronger than this.

I heard his voice break through my sobbing. It was quiet and sweet. "Hey . . . hey, listen. I can get someone else to do this." I was over halfway done at that point. I tried to stop crying and took a few hitching breaths.

"No. No, I'm okay." I gathered up my strength and any shred of dignity I might have left. I'm not a quitter. I sniffled, feeling like a little kid and tried to pull it together. I have to do this. I have to continue sewing. I settled back in and started on my next stitch.

"You don't seem afraid at all. I don't understand that." I observed.

"Well, fear's sort of an odd thing." I paused and glanced up again for a moment. "You don't like it, but you can't just get rid of it. It's a struggle. But you have to learn to deal with it or it'll make you insane." He said.

I sighed. "I haven't had much success with fear." I continued to stitch, hoping he would explain what he meant. Maybe I could learn something from it after my weepy display.

The doctor did speak. He looked at me and offered up a story, maybe to help me understand.

"When I was in residency, my first solo procedure was a spinal surgery on a 16-year-old kid, a girl. And at the end, after 13 hours, I was closing her up and I, I accidentally ripped her Dural sac. Shredded the base of the spine where all the nerves come together, membrane as thin as tissue. And so, it ripped open. And the nerves just spilled out of her like angel hair pasta, spinal fluid flowing out of her and I . . ." He paused. His voice was changing like he was seeing it all over again. I could hear a trace of tears in his voice. I glanced up but tried hard to focus so I could finish the torture of the stitches. I listened intently.

"And the terror was just so . . . crazy. So real. And I knew I had to deal with it. So, I just made a choice. I'd let the fear in, let it take over, let it do its thing, but only for five seconds, that's all I was going to give it."

I looked up and stopped stitching, engrossed in his story. Tears had fallen down his cheeks. He sounded so firm, as if the fear was a something he could control and dismiss by choice. I watched his profile as he spoke.

"So, I started to count: One, two, three, four, five. Then it was gone. I went back to work, sewed her up and she was fine." His face was relaxing, remembering. "I think everyone has something like that. A moment where you establish your relationship with fear. And either you learn to deal with it . . . or you don't."

I responded with a small, sad laugh. "If that had been me, I think I would have run for the door." When I couldn't control my fear, I would take off without thinking, to hide, to get away.

He shook his head and turned all the way back to look at me. "No, I don't think that's true. You're not running now." He sounded convincing when he talked, I looked back at him, thinking.

I wasn't running now because of you and your voice.

You made me feel like I could do it.

You made me want to stay here.

We sat under a beautiful night sky. There were so many stars dotting it that it looked like a curtain of black velvet with diamonds of all different sizes encrusted in it. I have been outdoors at night in remote locations and had never seen so many stars at once in the sky. It was breathtaking.

Bonfires were everywhere around the wreckage. After I sewed him up, the doctor checked on a few critical patients. I shadowed him, helping his patients and assisting where I could. I felt tethered to him. I didn't know what else to do.

The marshal was one of them. I didn't indicate that I knew his identity. He was out cold with a massive head wound and a large piece of shrapnel sticking out of his abdomen.

I'm not a doctor but it didn't look like the odds were good that he'd survive. I didn't know how I felt about that. I resented him deeply but didn't wish death on him. On the other hand, I didn't want him telling everyone about who I was and be handcuffed or tied up based on his accusation, his version of the story of what I was accused of, not convicted.

The doctor finished for the night. He and I ate dinner together, sharing a piece of wreckage as a table and sat at our own, small bonfire. After repairing his wound, I felt some kind of bond with him. I had just met him that day and it was too hard to explain, but I think he felt it too. I saw how he talked with people one way, patients another, and then how he talked with me. He was more formal, assertive with others but when we settled after dinner to talk, I found him to be relaxed and . . . sweet. I believe under the doctor exterior and commanding voice, he's a sensitive and caring person.

He had an amazing smile that lit up his face. I noticed that his light brown eyes tended to reflect the colors around him. In sunlight, I could see the real color. By the flames, they looked almost an auburn color, warm and liquid. I liked his different smiles, laughter, and look of concern. I liked that he listened to me and I enjoyed listening to him. I respected him.

It was surreal that yesterday, I was in a women's correctional center in Sydney. One day later, I survived a plane crash so bad that nobody should have survived, stitched up a doctor, helped with other patients and got to enjoy the company of the same doctor under the starlight. He wanted to sit and talk with me. He looked at me like I was a regular person and a woman. I almost felt normal, something that I don't remember feeling for a long time. It's hard being on the run. It's lonely. Prior to that, I felt like an outsider because of my family.

The bond was probably the stitches, story and both of us crying when I sewed him back together.

My initial assessment was that he was attractive on different levels. I knew him but I didn't. I think the feeling was mutual maybe. It's hard to explain. He dimpled when he smiled, same as I do. I didn't feel alone when he was around. When he would glance at me, his eyes would soften. I didn't know what would happen after tonight, but we were alive right now and for the moment, I wasn't lonely. We had been through a horrific experience and had both miraculously survived.

The fire crackled. I looked at it and used a stick to move a log closer in to keep the flames high. He looked at me, amused. I didn't explain myself or how I knew anything about fires. I was guessing there might be time for that, or not. People seemed to think a rescue boat was coming. There were no signs of that though, only hope.

He took out a banana leaf and made a crude airplane from it. I watched in amusement, not questioning, just wondering what he was up to. He began to go through the crash step by step. I listened, my hand up to my mouth and fingers curled while I bit my thumb pad, which was upside down and between my front teeth. I didn't bite hard. It was an old habit to press against it, even just touching my nail with my bottom front teeth. I did it when I was thinking. I also did it when I was scared or nervous.

"We must have been at about 40,000 feet when it happened. Hit an air pocket. Dropped, maybe, 200 feet. The turbulence was . . ." At that point, the plane was lowered to his knee level. He was sitting with one knee up, the other stretched out in front of him while leaning back against his right arm comfortably. He shook his head with no words or explanation. ". . . I blacked out."

I lowered my hand from my mouth. I fought for composure, to not break down. I was about to talk about the worst memory ever. "I didn't. I saw the whole thing." I tried to hold back emotion, but my voice faltered. "I knew that the tail was gone, but I couldn't bring myself to look back." I paused, met his eyes and shook my head, unable to say more. I didn't have to. He looked at me, reflecting back the feelings I was holding back. "And then the . . . the front of the plane broke off."

He nodded and looked up and back to me. His voice sounded a little optimistic for some reason. "Well, it's not here on the beach. Neither is the tail. We need to figure out which way we came in." He spoke as if that was the plan and his mind was made up.

"Why?" I frowned.

"Because there's a chance we could find the cockpit. If it's intact, we might be able to find a transceiver. Send out a signal, help the rescue party find us." He rattled that off like he was a pilot.

I was curious and looked at him with a bit of awe. "How do you know all that?"

He laughed and smiled, shaking his head, looking at me and at the banana leaf airplane. "Took a couple flying lessons. Wasn't for me." He tossed it into the fire. It looked more like a shark now than an airplane.

I looked away for a moment into the fire and thought about this morning, what I saw when I was trying to orient myself in the jungle.

I didn't lose consciousness but had ended up on a pile of dead foliage with just my clothes, no jacket. I was thrown out of the plane somehow and hours after, still don't know quite how that happened. Did it roll or bounce? I had assessed my minor injuries then, stood and tried to figure out where I was while trying not to cry. I was completely alone in the middle of nowhere and wasn't sure which way to go.

I then heard the engine, screaming and chaos but behind me to my left was a plume of smoke in the jungle, maybe a mile away. It was large enough to be from a plane, but I didn't want to walk into a jungle alone and see a disaster scene. People don't survive these kinds of crashes. I thought maybe I was the only survivor until I heard screaming from the beach. I went towards the noise, but then deviated to the left for some reason where I came across the doctor first. I am glad I did in hindsight. He never could have sewn that wound on his own.

The doctor sat quietly, thinking.

"I saw some smoke after the crash. Just about a mile inland past the jungle." I pointed in the direction where it was. He looked that way and had this expression on his face, one that said he was sure it was the cockpit. "If you're thinking about going for the cockpit, I'm going with you. We should leave as soon as it's light."

I didn't want him to underestimate me and tell me to stay here. He didn't know I had experience tracking and being in the wilderness. The jungle was new to me, but I would still be an asset and I wasn't letting him go alone.

There was no protest. The doctor shifted to a more comfortable position to face me and smiled. He paused and looking at my face. He seemed pleased. I could tell that he liked me and was trying to figure me out.

He gave a small laugh and that amazing smile that reached his eyes. "I don't know your name." With everything that happen that day, we forgot the most basic thing, to exchange first names. I had mentally been calling him "doctor" all day. I forgot too.

I smiled and looked down at the fire, my brain processing. I've used aliases for almost 3 years, names of female Saints I liked in alphabetical order. Joan was next on my list. St. Joan was a warrior and leader.

I looked over at him and made eye contact. For the first time in years, I wanted to tell somebody who I really was just starting with my name. "I'm Kate."

He nodded, still amused at our mutual gaff. "Jack." We both smiled and looked at each other, our faces and eyes lit up by the flames of the bonfire.