Thanks for the reviews. Starting this chapter, I'm going to introduce some of the other survivors, although most of them won't play a very big role in this story. I'm actually thinking of having just Jack and Kate go after the Tailies so that I can develop their relationship without someone else in the way, but if you really want Charlie or someone to come along, let me know.

By the way, Kevin was the one who wanted six kids, bonboni. Kate doesn't want any right now, for obvious reasons. I just wanted to show that even though they love each another, they want differnent things, which is a source of unhappiness for Kate because she can't even talk to him about it without telling him about her past... ;)


Chapter 3. Hey!

To Kate's relief, the sun rose early the next morning; in spite of Jack's promise, she hadn't been able to sleep, thinking about Kevin, but with only the signal fire and the stars to illuminate the beach, it was too dark to do anything else.

Jack was still stretched out on his side a few feet away, his head resting on his arm, so she left the bay where the survivors had slept clustered together without waking him, searching for something that would take her mind off of Kevin long enough for her to figure out how to find him.

Half the camp was already up, scrounging through the wreckage for personal items; watching them, she decided that recovering their luggage wouldn't be a bad use of her time. Earlier that week, Kevin's mother had sent them copies of some of the wedding pictures: if she had those, she could start asking people if they'd seen him, maybe even show them to Jack so that he knew who it was that they were looking for. If he could put a face to the name, she thought, he might be a little more willing to help her, instead of trying to convince her that her husband was dead.

After more than sixteen hours on the beach, half of that in the sun, the bodies were beginning to deteriorate; stepping down into the crash site, Kate pulled her collar up over her face so that she wouldn't have to breathe in the stench. Each time she shifted a piece of wreckage so that she could search underneath it, she half expected to come face to face with Kevin's lifeless form, but as she made her way closer to the fuselage, it seemed like she would thankfully be spared that experience. If Kevin was dead, he wasn't on the beach.

She had just noticed a black suitcase that looked like his wedged underneath an upturned seat when a blonde man jumped down from the cabin, beating her to it.

"Hey!" she cried when he proceeded to undo the zip, dumping its contents unceremoniously into the sand. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"What the hell does it look like I'm doin'?" he countered in a deep, southern drawl as he riffled through each of the pockets. "I'm salvagin'."

"Not from that suitcase you're not," she snapped, snatching Kevin's camera out of his hand. If those were the last pictures of him ever taken, she wasn't going to let some hillbilly hock it for spare change. "It's mine."

"I may look like an idiot, Sweetheart, but I think I know a woman's bag when I see one," he drawled, holding up one of Kevin's oversized sneakers to illustrate his point.

"That stuff belonged – belongs – to my husband," she explained, catching sight of the envelop she was looking for; before he could follow her eyes and realise that it was important to her, she shifted her gaze back to him.

"Well that ain't exactly yours, then," he told her with a dimpled smile, adding a razor and a couple of tubes of sunscreen to his stash. "Seems to me that if your old man were any kind of gentleman, he would've come in here for it himself."

"So? What's your point?" she asked, irritated that he wouldn't just give it back to her. "My point, Freckles," he said with an obnoxious smirk, "is that I don't think you got a husband. I think you're down here for the same reason as me. Why else would you be this close to ground zero?"

He reached out for the camera again, and this time, she let him take it, repulsed by the idea that he thought she was like him, that she wanted to profit off of other people's deaths. She'd done a lot of terrible things in her life, but stealing from the dead wasn't one of them. "I don't care what you think," she shot back when she recovered from the shock of being read so well by a stranger, at least where it came to her being a criminal. "I just want that bag." She was considering making a grab for it when she heard a familiar voice behind her.

"Is this guy bothering you, Kate?"

She turned to see Jack striding towards them through the wreckage, concern etched across his face. It was sweet that he cared so much about her, especially when they'd only met the day before, but Kate couldn't help wondering why he thought she was his problem. It wasn't like she couldn't take care of herself.

"He has our luggage," she complained, her eyes still on the southerner, not realising how it sounded until he smirked again, his attention focused on Jack as he said, "So this is him, the guy who sent you to do his dirty work – what a catch."

Even though he didn't fully understand what the southerner meant, Kate could see that Jack was tensing for a fight. "Just give her what she wants," he said in a clipped tone, as if he were trying to keep his anger under wraps.

"Like I'm sure you do," the southerner countered in a sarcastic tone, making the innuendo clear.

Kate saw Jack tense again, clenching his fists. "Get the bag, Kate, and let's go," he ground out, staring the southerner down as she gathered up Kevin's belongings.

He waited until she left the crash site to catch up to her, jogging up alongside her. "What an ass. Did you get everything?"

"Minus a couple of tubes of sunscreen," she told him as she dropped down into the sand at the top of the beach. "Thanks."

"No problem." He watched as she unzipped the suitcase and dug out the yellow envelope, smoothing the creases before opening it. "What are those?"

Taking the one off the top, she held it out for him to see. It was a picture of the two of them outside the church, right after the ceremony. "Kevin's mother sent them to our hotel so that we could proof them," she explained, wondering what she was going to tell her if Jack was right. She doted on Kevin; on all of her boys; it would break her heart if he didn't come home.

"That's him? Kevin?" Jack asked, sitting down beside her as he took the picture from her.

"That's him." She was so overcome by gloomy thoughts of him again that she almost didn't notice the way Jack's brow furrowed as he studied it, his expression troubled. It was almost as if he recognised him, she thought, though she knew that that was impossible. She'd only left Kevin's side once at the airport, to go to the bathroom, and he hadn't mentioned talking to anyone afterwards. "What?" she asked when he looked up again, returning it to her without saying anything.

"Nothing." He shook his head, running his fingers through his hair. "I can just see why he wanted six kids, that's all. He's a good-looking guy, and you're…" Seeming to think better of whatever he was going to say, he trailed off, staring out at the ocean.

"I'm what?" she asked curiously: beautiful? Hideous? Lucky that a guy like that would want her?

But he didn't answer, colouring slightly as he pushed himself to his feet. "We should go talk to some of the others," he said, all business again, "see if they remember anything about the crash that we don't. One of them might have an idea of where we should start looking for the tail."

He didn't wait for her to get up as he started back towards the fuselage, closing the distance in long, brisk strides, leaving her to wonder what it was that he was so afraid to say, not just about Kevin, but about her.


Don't worry, Sawyer will not be turning it into a really creepy love quadrangle (three guys and one girl is a bit much!). I just thought it would be a cool cameo, given how he was in early season one.

Next chapter (s): Jack and Kate meet some of the other survivors.