Disclaimer;

All I own are my original characters and the plot. :3

Mmmm...

All I can think about is Case Closed right now, I won't even lie.

I have to watch the movie next, the first one. Somehow I've got to get my paws on all the other twelve that it has...

I HAVE to...XP

Anyways, I'm sorry this took so long guys. I wrote it out first with Hoagie going completely insane, but I wasn't feeling that at all. I HATED the chapter I wrote out, so I rewrote it again. Then it sucked...again, so then I rewrote it a third time. Hopefully this one will work.

super ario- Indeed they are, I really like the color green. Tis my favorite. -cuddles green crayon-

Simpering- Yup, I had to have a few in there. :3

XxBloodsbanexX- Lawl, floating hat. -watches it float away-

Paulagirl- Yeah, I like living. Don' wanna die anytime soon. XP Yay! Case Closed fan! How many episodes are there exactly? I have 136 in my possession, plus one of the thirteen movies, but I've got an awful feeling that I'll never get to see the whole thing. -sobs-

sstoons3425- Charles is intuitive enough to notice the dangers of giant trees burning to the ground. Hehehe...Maybe she'll get it back, maybe she won't. -winks- You'll have to read on to see...


Chapter Eight- Seperation Anxiety

Abby

Abby opened her eyes and felt the need to instantly close them against the world. She wished that this had all been a dream. That she hadn't even gotten on the plane yet, let alone gotten stuck on a deserted island. Even wished that she could wake up and find that their little adventure to the top of the cliff had been a wild dream.

She'd been wishing that for four days now. Abby stood up and looked around the empty cavern. It hadn't been hard finding it once the sun had come up, but it seemed cold and distant now. Not at all comforting, Abby would almost rather sleep in the jungle. Still, she wouldn't waste Hoagie's sacrifice.

Abby crawled out of her hole, and blinked into the sunlight. It was...terribly bright today. Another scorcher. The girl could hardly understand how the days managed to be so hot here, but the nights got so cold. Abby shuffled over to the stream they had found and slurped hungrily at it.

It was all she could do to get some of the starfruit down. Abby didn't like eating, probably because she was grieving. Was she grieving? The more the teen thought about it the more miserable she felt. Of course she could grieve about Hoagie. He had been her friend, and she had been stupid enough to let him get himself killed.

Being guilty about the death of a friend is an awful feeling. It reared it's head at Abby every time she did something. Just when she thought Hoagie was out of her head for a moment his blue eyes would twinkle merrily in her thoughts. She had failed him. She had let her common sense fly out the window because he had been stubborn. Abby would never be able to forgive herself for that. The only way she kept moving through life was to make sure he hadn't wasted his life on her.


Hoagie

Ever so slowly he scraped the stone across the floor of his ledge. Right next to three other marks. Hoagie removed his goggles and rubbed his temples with a sigh. Four days. Every moment that ticked by brought him closer and closer to death. He knew that the average person could live a week without food if they had water. He had plenty of that, but he had to factor in the fact that he was constantly exposed to the elements as well.

Things were not looking good for Hoagie P. Gilligan.

At the moment he was propped up against the wall of his ledge, just inside the mouth of the cave. Hoagie would have liked to travel deeper inside, to see if it would bring him to the other side. Only, his ankle kind of prevented him from doing that. It was swollen, and the ankle itself had turned a lovely shade of purple.

Then there was the fact that he just didn't have the will to go on anymore. His first day had been swept away by attacks of unconciousness. The second day he had tried to lure a vulture or some bird to his ledge so he could kill it for food. He hadn't succeeded at that, and at that point he wouldn't have eaten the bird raw anyways. The third day he yelled for Abby until he was hoarse. Now he put his head on his knee's and stared blankly at the ever falling wall of water.

What was the point? Even if he managed to get food on this ledge it would only prolong the inevitable. Even if he managed to get OFF the ledge somehow it was just giving him a pointless amount of time. All things died, why not just give up and die now? What sense did it make to make himself suffer for something that was going to come anyways?

He found himself, several times, considering throwing himself off the edge of the ledge he was one. Every time he did he would linger, and drag himself back. At first he never made it to the ledge, but lately he had caught himself actually ready to let go. To just fall to his death like he should have done four days ago. It scared him a little, this bleak outlook on his remaining minutes.

As a rule he was a pretty optimistic guy. Maybe not as bouncy as his friend Kuki, but he usually could find the bright side to bleak situations. Hoagie's mouth twisted into a small, wry smile. "So buddy, what's the silver lining to this cloud?" He murmured, jumping a little as he spoke. He'd forgotten what it was like to hear a voice. The only audio he'd had for days had been the water.

It gave him something to do at least. Think of a good thing about the situation he was in. Hoagie paused, staring blankly at the rock stone beneath his mismatched feet. (One of his sneakers had been removed on account of the swelling of his twisted ankle) He was surprised how easy it was to actually find the bright thing for him now. The good part that came along with this bad, with the fact that he was probably going to die. Abby was okay.

Unless she fell, and missed the ledge after you let go. Some dark thought provided, not really of his own will. Hoagie scowled, the look was so unnatural on his face that it kind of bothered him to do it. "No." He said, determined, "No, she made it. Abby made it. That girl, she won't give up. She's strong. She's safe somewhere on the island. I just know it."

A smile of satisfaction lit his face, he'd convinced himself of that fact for the moment now. Hoagie turned to look at a new piece of scenary. That was a bit sparce since he was stuck on the side of a cliff. Most everything that would even be worth seeing was covered in mist.

Yet even as he situated himself he felt that depression crowding in. Tainting his thoughts with it's bland sadness. Hoagie put his head in his hands and stayed still for a moment, trying not to feel anything. Not the pain in his ankle, not the agony of his head. Not the hunger that made him think he'd never complain about broccoli ever again. Hoagie would honestly kill to eat some right now.

Okay, so kill is a loose term. It would depend on who he was killing. He'd kill a bad person maybe, for broccoli. It wouldn't do to kill a little kid that didn't do anything to him or something. Hoagie laughed at his train of thought. How boring this pathetic existance of his, to latch onto something like that.

What's the point? I'll die in a few days anyways. Three, on average. Though I think I heard something about a guy who lived for like three months on just water, some hunger strike in a prison or something. Or wait, was it three months or three weeks? Three years? I doubt years, wouldn't his body just eat his stomach like it does to people who are anorexic? Hmmm...if you go on a hunger strike is that anorexia? Hoagie blinked and sighed, "No, there is no point. The only thing I can do is suffer. Is to feel pain and wish that I'd done something different. That's not exactly working. At the moment I'm just wasting air."

He laughed, but it wasn't a laugh filled with his usual light mirth. No, it was a sad laugh, and it rang coldly in the air around him. Hoagie got onto his hands and knees and inched forward. Every movement brought throbbing pain to his head. His arms were trembling with the effort just to move this far. Already starvation was making him terribly weak.

As his fingers curled over the ledge and he peered over he smiled to himself. A lonely and sad sort of smile. "If my calculations are correct Mr. Gilligan, you shouldn't be hesitating at the last moment this time. Every time I've come here something has stopped you. That something is gone isn't it? I can tell...I...don't feel like continuing..."

It was almost like a saving grace. A gust of wind suddenly blew, knocking the boy forward so that he teetered precariously over a precipiece as emotional as it was physical. The coincidence was uncanny, almost impossible, but as the boy stared at the ground he was sure he'd soon be crashing into he heard a soft sound behind him. In fact, he shouldn't have heard it at all. He just...felt like it would be a good idea to turn around.

Disbelief flickered in his blue eyes as he crawled over to the object and stroked it with his hand. After he touched it he snapped it up and stared at it in shock. What...how? He knew this, he'd recognize it anywhere. He'd never seen her without it since the day they met each other on the plane. Abby's hat.

The red fabric was soft to the touch, and she had definitely worn it several times in her life. For a long time, the cap was tattered and had clearly seen it's fair amount of wear. For some reason he couldn't help but think of the exploration hero Indiana Jones, with his hat that he would risk loosing an arm under a crushing door for. It was Abby's most prized possession.

"How do I know that?" He murmured, only it was a half murmur as if the thought was just something out of habit. He had figured out how to fly a freakin' plane, this was a little small by comparison. Still, it made him think about it for the first time. Really think, really hard.

Why did he know things he never remembered learning? Why did he and Abby get along so well, when she seemed like the kind of person you had to earn the respect of? Why was it that he felt like he had met with a long-lost friend when he met her, which also happened to be how he felt when he met both Wally and Kuki for the first time. In fact, he remembered Wally saying something to him later, when Kuki and the difficult teen had started dating. "Ah feel loike she's been what Ah've been missin' since Ah was a kid. Ever since Ah turned thirteen Ah've felt loike someone punched a hole in mah chest, loike something was missin' that Ah couldn't replace. Eh, crud, that sounded so damn cheesy..."

"It makes sense, I know it does. Because of my dream." Hoagie said, "But why? What is all the connection? Come on Gilligan, you're the smartest kid in your grade. You're practically a prodigy. THINK..."

Behind him the ledge remained unforgotten. He didn't even realize yet, that Abby had saved his life. That hat brought her prescence to him, and hope to his heart. Fire burned in his blue eyes, still dull with exhaustion, but there was a blazing light of determination. Hoagie would live, for now.


Abby

Abby held up the piece of bark with a cry of success. Hey, she wasn't as good at inventing as...well, better not think of that now. So what if the thing she had made wasn't exactly crucial, she could live without it really. Still, her fingers had found the makeshift stone knife HE had made, and she had managed to carve a comb out of a piece of bark.

Yup, a comb. Hey, a girl had their needs, and really it was just to give her something to do with her hair. Abby's long black hair wasn't something bad by any means, but having lost her hat left the top of her head free for twigs and branches to occupy. No thank you, even a jungle girl had to keep herself good looking.

Abby undid the braid she always kept her hair in and ran the comb through her thick hair. She winced, ouch, okay so it's full of knots. Not too surprising since...well, she'd been hanging out in a jungle for the past five days. Or was it six? Abby blinked, trying hard to remember. How many days exactly had she been on the island? She had started counting days since Hoagie had fell but...

Tears flooded her eyes. Dammit, she lost. Abby looked up at the sky and took a deep breath to calm her nerves. How long would it take for her to get used to this pain? Just when she thought things were bearable she felt as if somebody had shoved their hand into her chest and torn her heart out.

Life sucks. She thought, narrowing her brown eyes at the treetops. It most certainly did. What else could she say about a life that gave her this? A sister who would like to see her dead. A group of friends that wouldn't know her if she smacked them in the face. Getting plane-wrecked, lost on an island and loosing the person she'd let closest to her heart in a long time.

Wait...closest to her heart? Abby clutched at her chest and stared into the forest. She was unkowingly copying the blank look that Hoagie had given his surroundings only moments earlier. Even as she stared into the darkness she felt tears filling her eyes again. Damn, she was stoic. She shouldn't be so broken over this.

And why not exactly? Because your cool? No, a person who won't let themselves be swayed by the death of a friend is a jerk girl. Not cool. Abby sighed, and for the umpteenth time she cried. Not a wailing cry, or a clinging to the ground cry. Just silent tears that streaked down her face. She didn't sob, but the ache in her chest grew with every tear that fell.

Oh it hurt, and she longed to have somebody hold her to help that hurt go away. Which made her hurt even more, because in her heart she knew that the only person that could make her feel better about this, the only person whose arms could truly chase this pain away, was Hoagie.


Hoagie

As the sun sank lower in the sky Hoagie curled into a ball. His thoughts were churning, and his heart was struggling. No, there was truth somewhere. Somehow he had to find it, but the weakness had taken hold of him now. He couldn't go to sleep on purpose anymore, there just came points when his body just became too exhausted to carry on any longer. As he lay with his eyes closed under a cloud of unconciousness his hands gripped the hat tightly.

He was in the treehouse again, but this time he wasn't going to let it slip from him. Be assertive Gilligan, he had to take this dream by the reins. To find out why the heck he was here. The boy rounded the corner and found himself face-to-face with the round boy of his youth. "Alright bub, time for some answers?"

The treehouse scene shifted so fast that he almost fell flat on his face, though the young version of himself remained standing there. They were now surrounded by a bunch of tulips, and the young him smiled at him. Beamed, "Don't you mean, alright BULB, get it, because of all the tulips? They grow from a bulb!"

Hoagie laughed, as bizarre as that was it was a brilliant joke. (He says) Still he pointed, "You have answers don't you? But why? What's the connection? Why do I know things I don't know that I know...okay, so that sentence was pretty confusing but STILL. Why is it that Wally and Kuki seemed to know each other before they met? That I feel like I used to know them too, and that I feel like...I knew Abby."

"Because you did." young Hoagie said, looking at him as if he were insane. Hoagie suddenly noticed that the boy was wearing an aviatar cap with the number two etched into it. Did he have that somewhere? It seemed so familiar but he couldn't remember ever having worn it.

"I did not!" Hoagie protested, waving his arms, "I've never met Abby, I'd remember it!"

"You just said you did." replied young Hoagie with a smirk. "The connection is the past, don't you understand that? Isn't it weird that you don't really remember having many friends when you were a kid? Yet you feel like that was a happy time right?"

"Um..." Hoagie said, "So you're saying...hey! Wait, where-"

Young Hoagie had vanished, or so it seemed. The scenary had changed too. He was at a park somewhere, and five children were running around after each other. One of them was the young Hoagie he had lost a moment ago. There was the short boy that was Wally, and a girl in a green jumper that had to be Kuki. A bald kid raced ahead of the group, saying sharp commands that the kids responded to like a well oiled machine. Then there was Abby, young Abby with that red hat.

In the waking world Hoagie clutched that hat tighter, but he wouldn't know that here. Here he just clenched his fists while his mind churned sluggishly. It was like...something had been jammed in his head. Even as he started thinking of this he realized with a jolt that the kids weren't exactly playing, or running after each other. They were fighting something, a huge robot with five kids in the very top of it. Five C-R-E-E-P-Y kids. They had WEAPONS. No, this wasn't a game of tag, but a coordinated team working against a hated enemy. Even as he stared at them he felt a rush of dislike for the kids in that robot.

The bald kid reached the top of the hill and grinned at the enemy below. The other four, including his younger self, spun around and stood ready to fight. The robot struggled to a halt, "We will destroy you!" The kids yelled all at once, the ones in the robot. It was terribly creepy, they spoke as if they had the same mind.

"Maybe some other time then, Delightful Dorks." The bald kid said, a glimmer of light caught his sunglasses. "Kids Next Door Battlestations! ONE!"

At the word one the boy suddenly sprinted forward, towards young Hoagie who was pulling on a drawstring from his backpack and yelling, "TWO!"

The two shot into the air, and young Kuki giggled and ran at the robot with a gun that shot sticky taffy at it's feet. "THREE!" She yelled, and Wally caught her by the sleeve of her shirt. She spun around and tossed the smaller boy into the air. He and the first boy plummeted at the machine. Wally and the bald boy kicked it at the same time.

"FOUR!" Wally yelled with a smirk. The robot groaned, it's legs bending back so that the top fell off and exploded on the ground.

The five kids fell out of the machine, and landed near young Abby. She smirked at them, and held a weapon that looked like a plank of wood rigged up to another plank of wood and a magnet somehow. "Five." She hit them in the face with it, and they fell back with a cry. Behind them their robot was exploding. Hoagie cheered, alright, take that you jerks!

The scene changed again, so that this time he was sitting in an airplane. He wasn't afraid of it now, he was just staring into the blue sky with a feeling of freedom blossoming in his chest. Younger Hoagie looked back at him from the cockpit, and grinned at him. "Don't you get it now Numbuh Two?"

"Heeeey! Earth to Numbuh Two!" Hoagie blinked, and found himself suddenly steering the make-shift plane. The bald British boy was looking at him as if he'd done something odd, "Are you alright?"

"Uh..." Hoagie replied.

"Poor Numbuh Two, maybe he has a fever!" Kuki giggled, she hopped over to him and put a hand on his forehead. Completely defeating her purpose thanks to the long sleeve that covered her hand. She giggled, "Nope, he's okey-dokey Numbuh One!"

"Of course he's alroight Numbuh Three!" Wally scowled at her as if she said something stupid, but the girl only gave him an innocent smile that made him look away and mumble something under his breath.

"Be nice Numbuh Four." Numbuh One said, turning to Wally and attempting to hide the glimmer of amusement in his eyes behind his sunglasses.

"Numbuh Five thinks we should stop here if Numbuh Two is sick." Abby said, Hoagie remembered her saying it before, and the boy stared at her. She tipped her head and smiled at him, "What are you lookin' at?"

He woke with a start. The boy blinked, trying to sort out the route his dreaming had taken him. "What are you lookin' at?" Abby had said in his dream. He remembered it, but that wasn't all. Hoagie sat up and stared into the darkness. Something...was different. The teen gripped his head and stared at the ground his brow furrowed in thought.


Okay, so the part where Abby is alone in the forest just quietly crying...

Right when I wrote that the song All We'd Ever Need by Lady Antebellum came on.

GAH! Depressing chapter. -.-u Abby's hard to write when she's alone. I was like, what the hell does a grieving girl do when they're all alone on an island? Make combs! XP

It's so obvious that I had no muse for Abby. Hoagie's part is so big and inspiring and hers is dinky. Sorry Abby. -cuddles-