A/N: Sorry for the long wait! This is a rather short chapter, a bit of a filler, but the next will be longer, I promise!

"So where is she?"

"In the bathroom. Her flight back to her father's leaves in half an hour."

"And you'll confront her on the plane. How very nostalgic of you." Jackson detected a hint of bitterness and annoyance in Alex's voice and decided to confront him on it.

"Are you all right?"

There was a long pause, and Jackson pulled the phone away from his ear, his first thought being that his call had been dropped. He began to mutter a, "Damn Verizon…" when Alex finally spoke.

"I'm fine." It was short and tense.

"And Rachel?" Innocent, yet instinctively Jackson knew Alex's irritation would have to deal with her. Rachel tended to be a bit feisty, Jackson had noticed, on the rare occasions that he had to deal with her, and her pregnancy-irritated hormones wouldn't help matters.

"I wouldn't know. Do I look like her keeper?"

Yes, something was definitely wrong and it definitely involved Rachel, Jackson was sure. Not that he cared much, but he was sure. "No, you look like her fiancée. What happened?"

"I'm not her fiancée, not anymore. She decided that she was too damn good for me and ended the whole thing."

Jackson paused, not quite sure what to say next. He could be supportive and apologetic, but that wasn't his style. Or he could be vengeful and tell Alex how stupid Rachel was, but he liked Rachel. If he was too harsh on her, Alex could end up with some typical Brooklyn bimbo. The last option was to crack down on Alex, tell him to go back to her and force her back to the island, which, in all honesty, is what Jackson himself would have done. But he didn't want to lose Alex's friendship. "So…what are you going to do?"

"I can't do anything at all," Alex snapped. "I'm sick of forcing her into everything. I'm tired. I just want to forget all of this. I can't keep wishing that she'll come crawling back to me, so I'm just going to go home." Jackson frowned disapprovingly. That was it? He was just going to give up on the girl?

He desperately wanted to say more, but the risk of losing Alex's acquaintance stopped him. He cleared his throat and grunted, "Okay, then. I guess…I'll see you later."

"Yeah." They hung up, and Jackson wished he hadn't come off as so…uncaring. This was one of the few situations he did care about, and yet he couldn't even express a single word of sympathy. He sighed and pocketed the device as an announcement regarding his plane's arrival stirred him to action. Heaving his weighty laptop bag over his shoulder, he quickly began to stride to the plane. He saw Lisa nervously, briskly walking about two meters in front of him and grinned.

He couldn't change the situation with Alex, but he could certainly amend the Lisa problem.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Lisa made it to her seat with about five minutes to spare, pleased with how cleanly everything was operating tonight. The plane was taking a light load tonight, or so the flight attendant who led her onboard informed her. Under booked. Lisa took this as an attribute to her advantage. The less people there were, the safer things would be.

She was seated next to a husky man in jeans and a polo shirt, who was reading a thick novel that, judging by the worn cover, was a murder mystery. Lisa rolled her eyes but smiled at the man as he let her pass. She wasted no time in making herself comfortable, holding a pillow on her lap rather than placing it behind her head. Within a few minutes, she heard the monotonous pre-flight instructions, and then the wheels began to roll.

Her eyes were closed and her head pressed against the back of her seat when her seatmate spoke. "So, where are you headed, Miss? Home? Or away from home?"

Lisa wanted more than anything to merely slap the man for rousing her, but she forced a smile and opened her eyes. "Away." With a sudden gut-wrenching sense of panic, Lisa prayed the man wouldn't recognize her as, technically, the fugitive she was. Of course, she'd been declared dead six years ago, and her appearance had changed a little bit, but some people could just pick up on these things. She glanced at her purse, which had carryon tags with her mother's name on them, and breathed, forcing herself to keep a straight face. "You?"

"Same."

Lisa looked up then, only to find him staring intently at her. She gave a weak grin back, and then looked away. A moment later, when she lifted her head again to take a sip of her water, his face had not changed.

"Can I help you?" she offered a bit snappishly. Without pulling his gaze away, he slid something onto her tray table. She took a look at it.

"Oh, God."