A/N Yey! Another chapter and we get to meet my OC :D The rest of characters that you might not know by name are the background Tailies that appeared on the show. I re-watched episode 7 from season 2 like million times.

Oh, every change in perspective will be marked with ~oo0oo~ so as to avoid confusion. FF seems to refuse double spaces ==

Again, thank you Tom, for being my beta-reader. And thank you all for reviewing. Read, review and enjoy!


CHAPTER 2

Nobody appointed Ana the leader of the group, but it was clear that she was in charge. Her assumption of the role was tacit, her leadership was absolute and her decisiveness was greeted with many sighs of relief. Shock and trauma couldn't be erased by the very fact that somebody took responsibility, but one thing could be said for sure: Ana Lucia's strong personality forced people into temporary sanity. It kept them going for the time-being, at least until rescue could come, which would take the responsibility off Ana's ever-tense shoulders.

She wouldn't have admitted it, but in some sense, she found that she enjoyed it. This rush of blood to the egowas mostlyshushed by rationality, yet it lingered, just under the surface. A new chapter of her life had begun – in this part of the story, she wouldn't let anybody get hurt. Not here, not now. Not when she started with a clean sheet of paper. Whatever would happen next in her life – that life away from wherever she was now – was not to be thought about. Until then, she was no longer the broken girl with blood-stained hands, which refused to stop trembling at night, even after a couple of drinks. She was again the woman of duty to the people. A crystal clear knight. She hadn't felt that way about herself in a very long time.

"My bag is there. Not a big one. About this size. Green. My wife chose it. I wanted the grey one, but why argue over a stupid bag, right? Have you seen it?" asked a man Ana had mentally dubbed Teacher, thanks to his thick eyeglasses and mannered speech. She didn't have an answer for him. Not for this and not for the many others that people started to ask her.

It irked her that so many people expected her to know all and see all, but since she was in charge, she had to accept the fact that hearing others out came with the territory. She was glad that her years of working with trauma victims asking odd or crazy or flat-out stupid questions taught her some could still remember a severely burned woman who, while Ana was trying to usher her away from acrime scene, kept asking about her cat, Snowy. She could still hear the woman's choked pleas. Stuff like that stuck in her head forever.

"We need more wood for the fire. Go with...what's your name again?" she said, grabbing a passing man by his elbow. It was a bold move, seeing that she was a head shorterthan him and, judging by the size of his shoulders, definitely weaker. He looked at her with surprise in his eyes. It reminded her of a lunatic shaken from his sleep. "Mr. Eko," he replied curtly. Even the accent suited his physique – rough and somewhat crude.

She wasn't afraid of his bulk. From day one on the job, Ana had dealt with intimidating opponents on the streets; for her own safety, she couldn't afford to come off as weak. So she didn't back down from anyone. It's the key to overpowering, or at least holding your own until help arrives, even the strongest ones – never doubt the power of self-confidence. But this Mr. Eko wasn't a violent alcoholic threatening his teary-eyed wife. There was calmness in his eyes. Calmness and logic. It was exactly what she needed to see at that moment.

Ana crooked a thumb toward Teacher, who was rubbing his bicep and looking around. "Take him with you and gather wood for the fire. Goodwin would appreciate some help," she said. Eko nodded and wordlessly led Teacher in the direction of the ex-Peace Corps volunteer whose blue shirttail had led her to Bernard.

She approached a small group of people sitting on the sand and treating each other's wounds like monkeys grooming each other. The comparison was silly, but it stuck, even though it wasn't that amusing. Those people were scared to death and needed to stick together to maintain the slightest illusion of normality. Being among people felt more natural then staring into the jungle's eyes and imaging what danger might be hidden behind the wall of foreign trees. Miraculously, they survived a plane crash. Even she managed to escape serious injury. The lump on her head was the only mark she had on her.

It seemed that the airplane had selected a group of people to die and picked the other to live in this place. It reminded her of things that elderly aunts would warn about during Sunday dinner: God chooses those that are pure enough to go to heaven and those that won't be given this prize. He definitely made a mistake choosing her as a survivor. She was quite sure that if she ever met God, she would have a lot of nasty things to say.

She gritted her teeth and tried to brush these thoughts aside like dirt off her shoulders. Wallowing in pain is for cry babies, she told herself. And big girls don't cry, right?

"Hi. I'm Ana Lucia," she said to the girl sitting near her. She didn't feel like socializing, but Ana wanted to stop her emotions from flowing too happened, happened. Now she had to deal with the situation at hand.

The girl's eyes held pain and fear as she watched the ocean lick the sand. But when she finally locked her blue eyes onto Ana's, she smiled. "Samantha. Nice to meet you," said the girl almost cheerfully.

So young, Ana thought. Too young to be stuck here. 17, maybe. Definitely under 20. Probably still in shock, she judged. Ana's eyes took in the girl's appearance. There were bruises all over her skinny form. Streaks of tangled wet hair covered clung to her cheeks. Ana thought she looked like a kitten retrieved from a washing machine.

"Were you on your own? Travelling, I mean," Ana inquired. Samantha's eyes immediately moved to the ocean. Ana's heart sunk. Think before opening that mouth of yours, for fuck's sake, Cortez, she thought.

Samantha was very quiet for a moment, then said, rather plaintively, "I'm not a good swimmer."

She wanted to change the subject, Ana thought. Good for me.

"My dad used to say that it's because of a wrong breathing pattern or something. Maybe he was right. It doesn't really matter," Samantha mused.

Ana didn't quite know what to say to that. "It's alright. It's gonna be alright," she said, trying to sound comforting. Then she watched as Samantha's strange smile reappeared and spread across her face, lighting up her features.

"Are you alright?" asked the girl, without averting her attention from the waves.

A very good question, Ana thought. Was she?

Libby's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Hey! Ana, right?" she heard her partner in leg-setting call. Immediately, she returned to on-duty mode, as she furrowed her eyebrows and nodded at the woman who was crossing the sand toward her.

"You think we should gather the bags, maybe find some food and water? It won't be long until nightfall," Libby said.

Ana felt a warm spark in her stomach.Finally, somebody to rely on. She could have kicked herself for not thinking about the supplies, though. Of course people would need something to eat by now, even if they were more interested in findingtheir belongings than in the basic needs of a plane crash survivor. Hunger was trivial in the short-term when lives were in the balance. A rumble built in her own stomach, as if to say, "I told you so."

"Would you take charge of that?" she asked softly. Libby nodded, then started toward the group that was working on the fire pit, ready to siphon a few of them to her project. Ana had to admire her. She had the airs of a woman in charge.

A moment later, Eko and Teacher returned from the jungle, hauling a fairly large pile of branches. Ana stepped in for the clearly-exhausted Teacher and helped Eko make his way to the pit. She made sure that the fire was far away from the extinguishing waves but not too close to the sinister blackness of the jungle. The sun was setting and the winds were starting to come off the ocean, so Ana knew they would all need some warmth right away. The stewardess she'd met earlier – Cindy – was taking care of the kids.

It hurt Ana to look at them. Children are the worst to watch suffer. What's the point if the kids are miserable and hurting? It wentagainst every good and decent thing that Ana believed in once upon a time. She closed her eyes, shutting them out. One single gunshot can throw your whole view on life into garbage.

She reopened her eyes and watched as most of the groupspent their last few hours awake sitting around the fire, staring blankly into the flames, likely too tired to talk or walk or think any more today. Tomorrow was nipping at their heels and she was glad that at least they had nothing else to do right now in this God-forsaken place.

Open up! thought Tyler as he tried to smash open a coconut against a pointed stick. His stomach grumbled in unison. He was hungry, frustrated and couldn't stop thinking about the comfy life he left behind in Sydney. I should have stayed there, called Amy and said: "Sorry, sweetheart, but I need some extra days to rest." Man, how I wish I was back in Persephone, he mused bitterly. The man sitting next to him wasn't a chatterbox. Not that it bothered him; he preferred the silence. Plus, the guy with the badly-injured leg stopped moaning a while ago and he didn't want him to wake up any time soon.

Tyler took one more swing, mostly out of stubbornness, and that little bit of extra force did the trick. The flesh of the coconut finally split apart, spilling a bit of its precious water on to the front of his canary-yellow t-shirt. He let out a victorious chortle, then eagerly started to drink from the fruit. He thought that somebody had called out to him, but he was too busy quenching the burning thirst to be bothered by anything.

And then the person who owned the voice he had thought he'd heard was over his shoulder. "I'm talking to you, yellow-shirt guy! Do you have more of these?"

Tyler finally averted his gaze from the almost empty coconut and looked at the person speaking to him. This lunatic obsessed over his green bag? Peachy.

"Yeah, I do. But if you think that I'm gonna break them for you..." he started. His arms were already aching from the first coconut. Okay, he might have been letting himself getout of shape recently, but he had the best vacation ever in Australia and was feeling pretty damn good about himself.

"Jim! Could you break some for the kids?" the blonde doctor chipped in. What for? The first ray of sunshine brings the rescue team and hasta la vista sand, Tyler thought while giving Jim some of the coconuts he gathered on his own. Probably, he wouldn't need any of them. Rescue is already on the way.

Finally, Morpheus showed pity and let fatigue take over the survivors. Sleep came, but it was restless and uncomfortable, more like losing consciousness for a couple of hours than actual slumber.

Sudden noise knifed through the night. Ana leapt from her spot and searched for its source. It seemed so illusory. Like a part of a nightmare. But the chill she felt was real.

Eyes snapped open as the sound repeated. Ana and a startled Goodwin ran to the jungle. The rest stayed behind waiting for the news. They were focused on every new sound and tried to recognise the source. Could it have been an animal? Maybe somebody got hurt? They replayed questions in their heads.

Samantha's eyes stayed shut. She wasn't sleeping, though; in fact,she hadn't slept at stayed where she was, her back to the other survivors.What to do? What to do? she thought frantically. She clung to her racing heart with trembling hands. Using the repeated question as mantra, after a couple of hours, her organism finally gave up and she fell asleep.

Somehow in the swirl of confusion and panic, no one noticed.

A/N I decided to do something fun. I've seen it done in another fic and thought it was a brilliant idea :D At the end of every chapter I'll put a little funny version of a scene from the section. Might be little drastic XD What you think about it?


~~~~~~~~~~BONUS SCENE~~~~~~~~~~

From chapter 1

"In all this excitement, I didn't catch your name," Libby said.

"Donald," he said.

"Donald, I'm Libby. That's Ana. Nice to meet you," she said. "Wish it wasn't like this, but still..."

"Yeah," Donald interrupted impatiently. He took another deep breath. "My leg's bad, right?" he asked.

"No, it's not bad. I would rather say it's devastatingly awful. Just look at this shit! All mushy and tangled. I think those may be your nerves. Nasty shit. The pain you feel right now is like a kiss to a cheek compared to what touching one of those noodles can do to you. I'll start tampering with them and you be praying for me to off you. And don't let me start on this bone, mister. That hurts like hell!" Libby replied jovially. "Ever been there? Once I finish with you, you'll very much feel like being there."

Donald switched off the lights in his head and promptly lost consciousness.

From chapter 2

"My bag is there. Not a big one. About this size. Green. My wife chose it. I wanted the grey one, but why argue over a stupid bag, right? Have you seen it?" asked a man Ana had mentally dubbed Teacher, thanks to his thick eyeglasses and mannered speech. She didn't have an answer for him. Not for this and not for the many others that people started to ask her.

Just before she had the chance to say something, Eko appeared out of the blue and piped in:

"Green bag? With a leather handle?"

Teacher bobbed his head: "That's the one! You found it?"

"Here it is, pal," Eko replied and presented the bag. An arm of the previous owner was still clutching the handle. Teacher's eyes glazed with tears.

"It's my bag!" he exclaimed with joy and jumped a little. He noticed the bloody limb attached to it. "What's that?"

"Rigor mortis. It's your wife's judging by the wedding ring," Eko shrugged.

"She just couldn't let go. Always a bitch," concluded Teacher and they both laughed earnestly.

Ana watched them go with her jaw lying on the sand.