The first kick hit the blonde brute right in the groin, causing him to drop the gun and fall sideways onto the dirty floor.

Sawyer scrambled, his leg feeling almost numb as he grabbed the gun from behind the brute's legs. Trying as hard as he could, Sawyer gripped the bar on the wall and raised himself halfway up to he was partially standing.

"You killed the wrong man," Sawyer said, no emotion on his pale face.

"It was supposed to be you," the brute growled at him.

It only took one shot that echoed through the bathroom.

"Locke!"

Sawyer came through the jungle with Satine at his heels. He wasn't angry about the fact that John had left the girl in the woods to die, nor at the fact that he knew the monster was moving towards the shore. Sawyer was mad that John Locke had purposely done it so Sawyer would hear the girl and be forced to help.

John stood from his place where he slept and Sawyer gave him a hard shove, sending him toppling backwards. Sun and Jin came out of their sleeping quarters in time to see Sawyer grasp John firmly around the throat and lift him up.

"Stop!" Kate screamed. She turned and ran towards the hatch and Satine knew she was getting Jack.

"Hey!" Michael appeared, rushing over and trying to separate them. He pushed Sawyer but Sawyer gave him an elbow to the mouth.

"What happened to you?" Hurley asked from beside Satine. He was staring at her mud caked arms and legs and the blood running down to her hand.

"Sawyer!" Jack came around the bend in the path and rushed towards them.

"He tried to kill the kid!" Sawyer angrily growled, tightening his grip. Locke was barely struggling, mostly staring at Sawyer with wide eyes. "He tried to kill me!"

"Let go of him!" Jack ordered, grabbing Sawyer's wrist and wrenching it away. John stumbled back, breathing deeply. "Oh my god."

Jack had seen Satine and stopped. Only then did most of the people around the caves notice her. In the firelight of the torches, she looked even worse. The mud caked her arms like some kind of stretchy suit. Blood covered almost all of her lower right arm and was running over her hand. Her face was muddy with scratches and her shoes were gone.

"What happened?" Jack said, coming over and lifting her arm. She pulled it away, fully aware that she was crying now.

"You tried to kill me," she said to all of them, trying to keep her voice steady. She backed away slowly.

"No! What…John?"

John Locke stood there motionless, staring at the girl.

"Did you see it?" he asked her, walking forward. He was looking at her with curious eyes.

"No," she breathed, gazing at him in awe and fear. "No, I didn't."

"John! Did you do this?" Kate had reappeared beside Jack. She looked shocked.

"You passed the test," John said simply, shrugging his shoulders.

"You did this?" Jack walked right up to John, faces inches from each other. "You did this?"

"The island wanted to…"

"The island didn't want anything!" screamed Jack, making them all jump. "She could have been killed!"

"If it wanted to kill her, it would have," said John fiercely.

"Sawyer?"

Satine had turned to see Sawyer striding away through the jungle. Everyone watched him go and Satine suddenly felt all of her backup was gone.

"You will not go near her. You won't even look at her. Do you understand me?" Jack was still lecturing John, who couldn't have seemed less interested. "That's it. You're done. This is your third strike."

"What was my first?"

Jack had turned to Satine and began to lead her away towards the hatch. He stopped and turned towards John.

"Boone."

"So what exactly happened?"

Jack had allowed Satine to shower in the shower that no one was allowed to use to conserve water. When she was done he had taken her over to a chair and sat down in front of her with his peroxide and equiptment.

"I was walking with John," she said quietly. She'd become extremely drawn in during the few minutes she'd been down here with Jack. She felt like he didn't believe her, and with Sawyer walking away she had no one to back up her story. "He offered me water but it was drugged."

"He drugged you?" she could see the shock on Jack's face as he cleaned her wound.

"Yes. And I woke up in a tree. And there was this like roar, and explosions. So I ran and ended up falling into this kind of…garbage pit," she said confusedly.

"Garbage pit?"

"Do you eat boar here? Like, do you kill for food?" she asked.

"Not much. We used to kill boar but we diminished the population so we stopped. Plus they moved inland. So we've been eating a lot of fish but occasionally Locke goes out for one. It's kind of a treat," Jack laughed. "Yeah, some treat."

"There's a pit. It's like a crack in the ground and there are carcasses of like all kinds of animals in it. It looks like something ate them and then discarded them there," she explained, hoping he'd give her a logical answer. "It was rotting."

Jack worked quietly for a moment, and she knew he was thinking hard. By his face she could tell he'd never even seen it before.

"Maybe the Others used it," he shrugged. "Anyway, I have to use this. It's going to burn."

When he poured the peroxide on it, she cried out and tried to pull away but he held her arm tightly. The gash was deep and ran almost the length of her inner forearm.

"Any deeper and you would have bled to death," he commented as he looked for something. "I can either sew it shut, or I can wrap it."

"Sew it?" she suddenly stood.

"Sit."

Why she listened to him, she didn't know. She very well could have walked right out of that shelter and out into the woods. But she knew that he was the only person who was willing to listen.

"I'll wrap it but if it doesn't stop bleeding I'll have to sew it shut," he said, taking out what looked like used gauze. It was darker in color and although it seemed it had been washed, still looked dirty. "Give it here."

When he had finished wrapping it, he took out of an almost empty bottle an aspirin and broke it in half.

"It'll probably start hurting more in the morning. Don't get it wet, and try to keep it clean," he said, handing her the aspirin. "You're all set."

Jack stood and packed his worn leather bag up with his very few medical supplies. Satien watched him carefully for a moment and when he saw her looking, her sighed.

"What did Sawyer have to do with anything?" Jack asked as he slung the bag over his shoulder.

"He…saved me," she said quietly.

Jack nodded and left.

Sawyer finished washing the mud off of himself and sat back on the rock. His head was throbbing from where he'd struck it and although he'd washed the blood off, it kept bleeding. He knew he should go to Jack but pride told him not to.

Returning to his tent, Sawyer laid down for a moment. It was quiet now, only the sound of the waves and the wind broke the silence.

He'd seen her there, in the mud and had heard her scream. It had been the most desperate scream he'd ever heard, but it also reminded him of something horrible. It was the sound of someone right before they die, pleading for life. It was something he'd wished he'd never have to hear again, something that no matter how much he put it out of his head, kept playing like a movie before his eyes.

There was what sounded like someone tripping in the sand and stumbling. Sitting up, Sawyer listened hard, his defensive instincts on high.

Slowly he stood, his head pounding still. Peering around the edge of his tarp he jumped.

"Sorry," Jack apologized quickly. He'd been kneeling in the sand beside the tarp. "I was trying to listen to see if you were awake."

"Yeah I'm awake, doc. What do you want?" Sawyer snapped, sitting back down on his bed. Jack came around and kneeled in front of him.

"Your head looks pretty bad," Jack said, reaching into his bag. "Can I treat it?"

"I don't need you to treat it, Doctor Spoc," Sawyer was irritated and his headache was getting worse. "Could ya leave me be?"

"Do you have a headache?" Jack asked. "Did you hit your head?"

"No, I did this myself. Yeah, I ran headfirst into a rock ledge," and Sawyer stopped being nasty because he didn't feel very well at all.

"You could have a concussion," Jack said seriously. "I can't let you go to sleep."

"What? Listen doc, I appreciate the General Hospital feel to this, but I really am fine. I just ran through the jungle from a giant monster that likes to fling dirt. I think I deserve some rest," Sawyer laid down angrily.

"If you fall asleep with a concussion, you may not wake up," warned Jack. "You could end up in a coma and with no way to feed you, you'd die."

Sawyer wish Jack knew exactly how much he would like to sock him right now. His head began to pound more severely and the thought of sleep was heavenly.

"Satine."

Looking up, Sawyer saw Jack reach forward and pull the girl into view. She had cleaned herself up and changed her clothes, but she still looked pretty banged up.

"You talk to him. He has a concussion, if he falls asleep he may never wake up. But he doesn't want to believe me," Jack stood angrily. "When you're ready, come find me and I'll test you every few hours to see if your brain is swelling."

Jack stormed off and Sawyer was left looking up at this girl.

"He's right," she said, kneeling. "I'm actually studying nursing and if you…"

"I don't need a lecture from a kid," Sawyer snapped at her, putting his hands over his eyes. "Especially not you."

She looked hurt but Sawyer didn't care. He just wanted sleep and it was the one thing he couldn't have.

"What do you want?" he demanded of her as she looked away. She looked back at him sadly. "Did you need something? Another pair of shoes, because I'm all out."

"No," she stood and brushed herself off. She'd found some shorts and an old t-shirt that was tied at the side. She looked almost cute. "I just came to say thank you."

He didn't answer her and her suspicions had been confirmed. He hadn't saved her to be kind, he had saved her because he had no choice. He didn't care, he was just like John. None of them wanted her here.

Slowly she began to walk away down the beach. She was too frightened to sleep, scared that whatever had been chasing her would come to find her. She had reached the shore when she heard Sawyer following her.

"I need to stay awake. Might as well walk," he said solemnly.

"John!"

Kate came storming towards him,

"You said you were going to talk to her!" she shouted at him, poking her finger into his chest as he stood at the door to the shelter. "You didn't say anything about leaving her in the jungle!"

"I didn't leave her in the jungle," John shook his head. "I knew exactly where she was."

"While she was out there, you were back here! She doesn't know her way around, and you knew she was in the Dark Territory!" Kate felt ready to hit him. "What were you thinking?"

"The island has tested all of us. Some of us passed, and some of us didn't. If she hadn't have passed, we never would have found her," John explained as though this made perfectly good sense. "She passed, the island accepts her."

"Accepts her? You're out of your mind," she almost walked away and then turned around. "You said to me that you'd find out who she was. Did you find out anything?"

"She's from Manhattan," he said, looking down at the knife he'd been sharpening. "And she's been hurt."

"Been hurt?" as much as she wanted to strangle him, she was curious.

"She didn't tell me but you can just tell by looking at her that whatever brought her here was rough. I'm almost convinced now that she watched her mother die because she hasn't said a word about her mother since we found her."

"How can we get this all out of her? Is there any way to jog her memory even more?" Kate questioned.

"Ana-Lucia searched the beach again for any more clues and she did find what looked like oil sitting in one of the low tide sand bars," he said, leaning against the door.

"Oil? How is that anything?"

"What would we use here that would leave oil in the ocean?" he asked her simply. She understood. "Either there was a larger boat not too far away, or someone was covered in it."

"But we found her yesterday. Wouldn't it have been washed out to sea?" Kate felt sure John had to be wrong. "I mean, oil doesn't like sit around."

"Yes it does. If someone dumped oil all over you and threw you in the ocean, especially these clear waters, the oil would come off. And the waves would wash it to the shore."

"What does it all mean?" her anger was gone replaced by worry.

"It means there's more to this story than we know."

Kate watched John's face, looking for any clue that he was leading her on. But he seemed serious and the fear just grew deeper. She didn't know why but everything about this girl perplexed her.

"What's going on?" Jack came towards the door.

"Nothing. We were just talking," Kate smiled at him. John bid them goodbye and went inside.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked. "You look pale."

"I'm okay. Everything was kind of rough tonight," she said, shivering a bit. He was awfully close to her.

"Yeah. Basically John left her in the woods by herself and that security system thing started chasing her. Sawyer saved her though."

"Sawyer?" Kate almost laughed. "I didn't think he was much of a hero."

"Well he saved her but he's not talking about it. And I'm pretty sure he has a bad concussion. I told him he should stay awake so I can test him every so often, but I don't know if he listened. Sawyer will do what he wants," Jack sighed.

Kate felt sure Sawyer would do what Jack said but not let him know about it.

"Listen."

Jack got very serious and moved closer to Kate. She could feel his breath on her and she found she was trembling.

"I don't know what's wrong with John. Something's the matter with him and he's scaring me. Don't go anywhere alone with him, okay? If he tries to get you to, come find me. We need to make everyone aware," Jack looked around to make sure no one else was listening. "And if you can, make sure he doesn't go anywhere alone with Satine either."

Kate nodded, looking at him. They were very close and for a moment, nothing happened. Then she closed her eyes.