It's raining.
This doesn't surprise most of Camp 29 Down's troop, seeing as they were stranded on an island with a tropical rainforest climate. It's a wonder they've been so lucky with the weather so far. That being said, watching the pools of water slowly start to form and mingle with the now-wet earth lets them know that their chores for the day will have to be slightly altered.
Daley doles out the new assignments, leaving only a few people to stay on their original tasks. Nathan is now in charge of gathering all their equipment and moving it to the boys' tents to prevent it from getting soaked and mould gathering in the drying clothes. Taylor is told to rearrange all the sleeping bags in the girls' tent and transfer it so they can all sleep under protection should the weather last through the night. Lex goes off to disassemble all of the electronics before they short circuit and Jackson starts to build a small bungalow to store firewood so that it's still usable. Daley herself is going to see if there's any place with enough cover for the fire later in the day. Eric and Melissa are the only two to stay on task; the blonde boy will continue to grab water and the young Asian girl is on for food scavenging duty today, anyways.
Melissa looks up to see the dark clouds forming in the sky and knows that the weather can only get worse. She wonders vaguely if she should warn Daley but quickly shrugs the thought away. If anyone knew how bad the weather could get, it was the red-head. She's one of the smartest people around here and Melissa knows she didn't just reassign everyone to freak them out.
She's about to run over to grab some warmer clothes for the day when Nathan walks toward her. Water is dripping down his curly hair and the rain is pooling over his face.
"Hey Mel," he says, looking apologetic, "I found a bunch of your gear thrown around next to your bag. The wind last night must have pushed it all around last night." He hands her the soaked contents and her heart sinks. Everything that could have protected her today was in that pile – rainjacket, sweater, a pair of thermal socks.
Nathan looks at her in concern. "Maybe you should see if one of the others can give you an extra jacket or sweater. I'd give you mine but Daley's using it." Melissa's first thought is to giggle, to accuse her best friend of flirting and tease him senseless. But now's not the time and they both know it. They both realize she's going out into the jungle alone and unprotected if she doesn't wear something to cover herself. But she's not about to let her friends get sick because of her careless mistake to leave her bag outside last night.
She can feel Nathan's gaze trying to weed out her thoughts, to expose her determination. So she smiles up at him, a false grin thrown carelessly between two friends. "Don't worry," she says, because they both know he will, "I'll go grab Taylor's. I'm sure she won't need it in the tent." She turns and walks away before he can see the lie in her eyes.
She grabs her smaller hiking bag that was only slightly damp and shoves what she can into it. Pocketknife, water bottle, one of the last apples they had found last week… It's not much, but it's all she thinks she'll need. She examines herself; light-pink hiking shirt and a pair of black shorts that are already soaked and clinging to her like suction cups. Boots that are muddied and white socks that are now permanently stained a dirty brown. All in all, Melissa knows that she's in no shape to brave the jungle, but what choice does she have? Let everyone else starve because she was too much of a baby to go out in some rain? No. Even if she changed her clothes now, these ones would still be soaked until the weather let up, and who knew how long that would be?
She stands up and is off, not giving herself a chance to worry; not allowing her mind to scream out this is a bad idea! She decides to go north-east this time, one of the few ways they haven't checked for food. Melissa's nearly at the edge of camp when a voice rings out behind her, deep and questioning.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Her heart skips a beat, then two when she realizes who it is. Turning towards him, her voice is temporarily lost. Jackson is standing up, next to a pile of leaves and twigs yet to be assembled. He's staring at her, just as Nathan was, but there's something deeper to his worry that Melissa just can't place.
She forces her eyes to stare back into his, wills herself to look confused and unfazed. "I'm going to see if I can find some food. It's my turn today, remember?"
"You're not wearing a jacket, Mel." He points out, his eyebrows raised. She blushes for a moment, glad a tall bush prevents him from seeing that she's wearing shorts, too. The young girl offers up a cocky smile and lies through her teeth.
"I actually have it in my bag, smarty-pants." She hears herself say. "I'm waiting until I get under the jungle covering before I put it on." At this she shrugs almost nonchalantly. "I just didn't want to get the inside wet."
Jackson's not buying this and she knows it. For one panicky moment she thinks he's going to shrug off his jacket and make her wear it. Then she'd lose it. They needed him; he may have given Daley the job of leading them but it was him everyone looked to for advice. If he got sick, everyone would be lost. She would be lost, and it's not because of his ability to lead.
So when he lets her go with the wishes of his luck and nothing else but a suspicious look on his face, she sends a prayer up to whoever's looking out for him and rushes off before he can say another word. She tries to calm her frantic heart but she knows she just avoided having Jackson take a risk he couldn't take, that she couldn't take. If anything at all were to happen to him…
The Asian girl shook her head clear of these thoughts. Focus, she thinks to herself, find the food.
She searches for over an hour, marveling in the breath-taking view the jungle has to offer. Trees go on for miles in each direction and rain drips tirelessly from the leaves. The trunks are thick and she has to jump over roots and duck over branches but she really doesn't mind all that much. Everything smells so clean here and there are no sounds of the camp that she left behind. In fact, with the weather being the way it is, the wildlife seems to have taken a stand still – all Melissa can hear is the sloshing sound her boots make against the muddied forest floor. It's almost enough to make her forget how cold she is.
Almost.
The weather's a lot worse by the time she finds what she's looking for. The wind is howling in her ears and thunder is clapping five, six counts away. The rain is no longer the harmless creature it had been when Melissa had left – now it's beating down on her viciously, taunting her bare skin with its vicious raindrops. She shivers uncontrollably, and out of the corner of her blurred vision she sees it – a flash of yellow.
She grins in spite of the cold that is chilling through her bones. The bananas are about fifteen feet above ground, dangling from a tall tree that sits in a small clearing. The raven-haired teen barely notices the clouds are nearly black and looming over her in a frighteningly dangerous way. There, just out of arm's reach, is food. And she knows just how to get it.
She pulls the pocket knife out of her backpack before slipping the straps back onto her shoulder and the tool into her pocket. With determination, she puts her foot up against the tree. In the distance, lightning flashes, forcing Melissa to pause and count. One, two, three… The sound of thunder rips through the forest, a lot closer than before. Melissa swallows audibly, knowing the lightning was drawing nearer and nearer to her location. She steels herself, exhaling deeply before she starts to climb.
It's not as easy as it looks, she realizes as her hand slips and cuts itself on a sharper piece of tree bark. She hisses, her blood mingling with rainwater and flowing down her skin. Food, she thinks to herself resolutely, food is right there.
It takes her a while to reach the food – half an hour, she's guessing – but when she does she's cut herself quite a few more times, scrapes and cuts all over her legs and arms from slipping up. Her hands shake with exhaustion and cold as she grabs the pocketknife from her pocket. She resolves to do this quickly, because she knows if she takes much longer than she'll pass out from exhaustion.
Melissa begins sawing away at the bananas, her blood dripping onto them. She grimaces, glad for the peelings on them – she wouldn't want anyone eating her blood. Her fingers are quivering and her breathing is labored and she's so close to cutting them down that –
Crack! A bolt of lightning not five feet away from her cuts through the sky, the thunder exploding like a bomb. Melissa screams, jumping as her heart stops from fear. The pocketknife slips out of her hand as the bananas fall but she doesn't notice because she's trying so hard not to fall herself. Her hands flail around as she tries to regain her balance but it's too late, she's falling, falling, falling to the ground.
Her head cracks against the earth and she hears something break as her arm is smashed awkwardly under her body. Melissa's sure she's never felt pain like this before as it explodes from her head and wrist, something she's certain is broken. A scream rips out of her throat, agonized, shrill; the wind takes it and rips it away before even she can hear it.
Melissa knows she should get up, run back to camp and get help. She can't carry these bananas with only one hand. Darkness is creeping up on her, and she tries to curl in on herself but that hurts her wrist too much and every shiver that passes through her body is more like a convulsion.
She's desperate to get into her sleeping bag, to have Jackson wrap his arms around her and warm her with his presence. She can taste blood trickling into her mouth from an open wound above her eye, but she doesn't care because when her eyes close all she can see is Jackson, Jackson, Jackson…
Jackson has a pit in his stomach before he hears the yelling back at camp.
His work for the day was done; a small bungalow, only about three feet tall by two feet wide, was now covering dry logs of wood. He had taken moss from the trees and insulated the whole thing and let it sit before he made his way back to camp.
A heavy gust of wind hits him and he pulls his jacket over his face, shivering slightly. He hasn't been able to stop thinking about Mel – she had better have put that jacket on the moment she had made it under cover. It had been hours since she had left to find food and Jackson is worried sick. He brushes his concerns off as being overprotective of the girl; she had probably taken a different path back to camp and is probably there right now.
As the tents come into view he can see Nathan screaming at Taylor, who looks more than a little scared. No Melissa in sight.
Probably just in the tent, he reasons. "Hey!" He yells at the two bickering teenagers. "What's going on here?"
Nathan's livid, his eyes cold and unyielding as they glare at Taylor. "She's a selfish brat, that's what! She didn't give Mel her jacket for food scavenging!"
"I'm trying to tell you, Nathan, that I don't have a clue what you're talking about!" She cries, her voice pleading.
"Whoa, what do you mean her jacket?" Jackson asks, his heart suddenly thumping wildly in his chest. "Mel has hers, she told me so herself."
"No she doesn't," Nathan pinches the bridge of his nose, defeated and worried. "Hers got soaked in the rain and I told her to go ask Taylor for hers but Ms. Prissy-Pants over here –"
"Wait, what?" Taylor paused, her eyes wide. "She never asked me for my jacket! I haven't even seen her since we all got reassigned!"
Lightning envelopes the camp in a blue light, and everyone freezes. The thunder's close behind, and suddenly Jackson knows with certainty what happened.
"She lied to us," he croaks out in disbelief. "She didn't want anyone else to get wet so she – " His voice breaks slightly, and he takes a deep shuddering breath before continuing, "so she risked it without one."
The three look to each other, knowing Jackson's right. The troubled boy is mentally kicking himself for not going with her, not giving her his jacket when he could have. He knew something had been wrong when they were talking, knew something was up. And he let her go. Stupid…
"Has anyone seen her?" Nathan asks, fear in his voice.
Jackson nods. "I did. I know which way she went. Taylor, you and Nathan get the others. Tell Daley something's happened to Mel, and get the first-aid kit. I'm going to find her. On my own." He adds, before either companion can protest. "We don't need anyone else getting lost or –" He trails off, his voice catching. "You know."
With that, he turns and tears off into the jungle the same way Melissa had gone. His heart is beating wildly in his chest and he can't help but remember how eerily similar this is to when she fell down the cliff. He only hopes that this time she's as unharmed as she was last time.
He's a cheetah, running through the foliage without a second thought and with as much speed he can muster. Every single possibility is running through his head; Melissa lost and falling down another cliff. Melissa being attacked by a wild creature. Melissa dying –
He stops dead, his mind crashing. He can't think like that, can't even ponder those words for a second. The tears that are streaming down his face by the mere idea of it are enough proof of that. There are so many different outcomes to this that dying is one he just can't even play with.
So when Jackson finds her face-down in the mud, his heart stops.
She's soaking wet, one arm splayed out to the side with blood running down it. Her legs are no better, but her other wrist… Jackson lets out a strangled noise. It's bent at an awkward angle, and he can see the dark red liquid streaming down her face from a cut on her forehead. There's a nasty bruise already forming around it, and mud is splattered all over her clothes. Just as he thought, she hadn't brought a jacket.
He runs to her, screaming her name. She's still; the only movement from her body is the wind that whistles through her clothes and blows them around. Her eyes don't flutter, her fingers don't twitch. She's as still as though she were a broken doll.
He drops down on his knees and the first thing he does is check her pulse. When he doesn't feel anything at first, he knows that if she dies he dies with her. Her skin is ice-cold and lifeless, and he nearly screams when he feels a faint heartbeat against his fingers.
He's scared out of his mind now, knowing she needs to get out of the cold, and fast. He's about to pick her up when a flash of yellow catches his eye.
The bananas are lying about three feet away, a pocket knife lodged into the roots. There's blood dotted on the peels and Jackson feels nauseous as he realizes what happened. Looking up, he can tell that Melissa had climbed the banana tree to get the fruit for them.
"Damn it, Melissa!" He growls, his tears running freely. "How could you do this to me? Don't you know I can't live without you?" He shrugs his jacket off and wraps her in it securely before picking her up and turning back to camp. He knows that if she stays out in the rain any longer she'll die.
The thought spurs him on and an hour-long journey turns into just fifteen minutes. He's not sure how he got back so quickly but he doesn't care. He hears the screams, the ordering voices but he pushes them away. Someone – Jackson thinks it's Lex but he can't be sure – holds the tent flap open for him and he lays Melissa down onto her sleeping bag. He's about to tuck her in when a hand ghosts over his shoulder.
"Jackson, you need to leave." Daley. She continues before he can protest, "I need to get her out of those clothes – All of them. I also need to look her over and I can't do that with a boy in here."
Jackson doesn't answer, the tears streaming down his face silently and quickly.
"I know you want to be here for her," Daley murmurs gently, "but I promise when I'm done I'll come and get you, alright?"
Not looking at her, he nods silently and leaves the tent, crossing the camp numbly and jumping into the other tent. It's crowded; all the equipment, bags, and electronics are on one side of the tent. The other four survivors are huddled in the other, some crying, others shocked into silence. They all look up when Jackson comes in but they know not to ask questions. Everyone sits there, waiting in tense hope, for what seems like hours. They've all changed into drier clothes and Jackson takes that to heart, swapping his soaked outfit for something warmer while Taylor closes her eyes.
Someone – mostly Eric or Taylor – try to diffuse the anxiety with conversation, but everything dies out rather quickly. Finally, Lex decides to pull out his pack of cards to distract everyone, and everyone but Jackson agrees, glad to have found something to pass the wait.
Just as Jackson is about to lose his mind and leave the tent, Daley comes in. Everyone starts chiming in at once.
"Is she okay?"
"What's wrong with her?"
"Is she awake?"
"How bad is it?"
The red-head puts up a hand to silence them, and fixes her gaze on Jackson, motioning for him to come outside. He scrambles up and out of the tent, running over to the second one before he hears Daley calling out to him.
"Jackson, wait!"
She catches up to him, putting her hand on his shoulder. She looks nervous, scared – nothing like the confident girl she usually is. Biting her lip, Jackson knows she's trying to find the words to tell him something.
"What's her condition?" He whispers.
Daley sighs. "She has hypothermia from being out in the rain so long. Her right wrist is fractured and I'm pretty sure she's got a cracked rib. It looks like she has a mild concussion but the cuts are all superficial and I'm honestly shocked she's not more hurt."
Jackson stares at her in shock. Concussion? Fractured wrist? Hypothermia? He can't say anything to Daley, just stares at her with an expression of mute horror.
"I thought you should know before the others, because…" She shrugs, looking away. "You know. I'll make sure you get some time alone with her." The red-head turns and jogs back to the other tent while Jackson hesitantly makes his way to Melissa.
She's lying in her sleeping bag, a hoodie just barely visible as her chest rises and falls. Her wrist is wrapped in a tensor bandage and there's a thick strip of gauze over her forehead. Her skin is no longer freezing when he touches it but it's still not as warm as it should be, and her body shivers with fever as she lies there. As he sits down next to her, he notices how bulky she looks and realizes Daley must have layered her with as many clothes as possible. All of the sleeping bags were tucked around her and even more sweaters had been draped on top.
He grasps her hand in his and brings it to his lips, kissing her fingers lovingly. He closes her eyes and breathes her in, trying to find some inch of sanity that he has left. He almost lost her today, almost had to bring back her body instead of her, Melissa.
"You scared the crap out of me, Mel. " He whispers, a shaky laugh falling out of his lips. "Do you have any idea what that was like, seeing you just… lying there?"
He takes a deep breath, steadying his nerves. Melissa's here, she's alive, she's breathing, he chants in his head like a mantra.
"I don't think I've ever felt so helpless in my life, Mel. Not when I got taken from my mom, not when the plane crashed, not even when you fell down that cliff. At least I could hear your voice then. At least I knew you were okay, safe. This… This was death for me. I was helpless."
He chuckles. "God, what I wouldn't do to hear your voice right now. Telling me that I'm not helpless, that I'm strong and caring and where would you be without me?"
"I'd probably be dead."
His eyes snap open and stare at her waking form, a look of pain and relief on her face. Melissa's voice cracks, weak and straining as she tries to form her thoughts.
"I'd probably be dead, and even then we still wouldn't have bananas because I'm too much of an idiot to –"
Jackson's lips cut her off her rant of self-loathing, his tears mingling with her own as he kisses her passionately, without restraint. He pulls away quickly, knowing she needs to rest, needs to fight out the hypothermia, but still.
Melissa's staring up at him, her shocked delight plain on her face. They both stare at each other for a full minute before a look of pain shoots across Melissa's face and she convulses again, a gasp escaping her lips.
Immediately, Jackson goes to get up, get Daley, but the Asian girl grabs his hand with her good one.
"Stay," she pleads with him. And really, Jackson doesn't want to go. As if to emphasize her point, she scoots over in her sleeping bag, and Jackson crawls in next to her, wrapping his arms around her waist to warm her.
Just as she closes her eyes again, he whispers, "I love you."
She makes a muffled sound that sounds a lot like "I love you, too," and Jackson laughs quietly.
When the others come in later, they find the couple fast asleep.
Should I even expect people to review or even read this?
'Cause I know this show's been off TV for years...
Ohmygodimoffoneshowandontothenextallthefreakingtim e.