My apologies. Random filler chapter. A little more light and fun than the previous ones. And no CC or SK! Yea! Well. . .at least not much. We've got a whole new romance: Walt and Alex. I christen it. . .Walex. Wait, that's horrible. What about. . .Alt? Ew. . .not much better. Alalt? Waal? Hmm. . .might need some work. Wait, I've got it! Roussalt! Get it? Because she's Rousseau's daughter? No. . .oh well. until a better name is suggested (anyone? anyone?) I shall officially call it. . .Aw. Because it's cute.

So, no more babbling, the first chapter of Aw!

Walt closed his eyes, and brought his fists up to rest against his head. He pushed against his skull, as though that might somehow help him retain knowledge.

"Hey, buddy," Jack said, sitting down beside him. "Everything okay?"

Walt sighed, and dropped his hands. No, everything was not all right. He'd been stuck on this stupid island for five years, the only girl that he knew was six years older and didn't even know he existed, his father was dead, and now he was trying to learn medicine without actually having any medicine. It was all so hard. It was too much.

"Yeah," he said dully. "It's fine."

"Good," Jack said, standing up and dusting off his pants. At that moment, Ana Lucia walked in, the small baby held in her arms. Jack looked toward her nervously, before returning his gaze to Walt. "Um. . .that's it for today. See you again tomorrow."

Walt glanced over at Ana. The two thought they had a big secret, but everyone in camp knew that Ana's baby belonged to Jack. It simply didn't make sense for it to be anyone else, since Ana could barely stand to be in the company of most of the survivors. Still, everybody allowed them their delusions, their supposedly secret love tryst. Walt sighed again. Just another feature of a messed-up island.

Well, what to do now that he had half of a free day. He whistled, and Vincent slowly loped over, tongue already lolling out of his mouth. The dog had aged considerably since landing on the island. But then, that was only to be expected.

"Hey, Vincent!" Walt cheered up a little at the sight of his dog. He always did. Leaning, down, he began to scratch the labrador behind the ears. "What do you think, buddy? What should we do today?"

But Vincent only whined, and moved his head a little to provide better access to the itchy part behind his ears.

"Hey, Walt!" Kate waved as she walked by, Diane cradled in her arms. Sawyer's good arm was looped lightly over her shoulders.

"Doc let you off early?" he drawled. "Got a whole day away from the dictator, eh?"

"Yeah, I guess," Walt replied. He'd gotten over most of his shyness, but every once in a while direct confrontation still made him nervous.

"So Jack's closed up for the day?" Kate asked brightly. Walt just shrugged his shoulders. It probably depended on what Ana had needed, but he definitely didn't know what that was. "Hmm. . ." Kate mused, glancing over at Sawyer. "Guess that means that it's a bad day to have him check out your arm."

"My arm is fine," Sawyer said, rolling his eyes and glancing over at Walt. "Ain't it, chico?"

Walt just shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno," he said. "I've never examined it."

"Well," Sawyer said, carefully disentangling himself from Kate and seating himself heavily down. "Seems like this is a momentous opportunity. You got yourself your first patient."

"What?" Walt tried to back away, holding his arms up in protest, but Sawyer just continued to stare at him, eyes wide open and innocent. Kate sighed.

"Stop bothering him," she said. "Come on, we'll just go and see if Jack's free."

But, just then, she walked by. She glanced over their way, flicking long, dark hair over her shoulders. She smiled, just a little, and then ducked her head away, embarrassed.

"No," Walt said. His voice cracked, and he tried to hide that embarrassment. "I'll do it," he said, and then, ignoring Kate's exasperation and Sawyer's smug smile "It'll be good practice. You know, for when I'm a real doctor."

Not that he would ever be a real doctor. As long as Jack was on the island, he would be in charge. And Walt had long ago given up on any chance of getting off the island.

So he scooted over to Sawyer, and gently pulled the man's arm out of a sling. "This was broken, right?" he asked, gently trailing fingers along the conman's arm. Sure enough, the forearm felt tender, and he could feel the jagged edges where the bones hadn't knit back together correctly.

"Clean off, just about," Sawyer responded, sounding almost proud. "Won it myself in a checkers match."

"Sawyer, shut up," Kate sighed.

"Now, now, sugarplum," Sawyer said reprovingly. "You wouldn't want Pickle there to hear you swearing."

"Pickle?" Walt asked curiously. He couldn't find any completely jagged spots. . .Jack had done a pretty good job of forcing the arm into some semblance of order. The scars from the surgery had healed over.

"It's Sawyer," Kate said by way of explanation, giggling a little and looking sideways at Sawyer as she did so. He cuffed her gently in the arm, before turning to Walt.

"So Baby doc, how's it looking?"

"I'd say it's healed," Walt said. Kate and Sawyer both looked at him dubiously, and he'd almost swear the baby stared at him, too. And understandably. Sawyer's forearm was not exactly, to put it kindly, looking good. It was bulky and twisted, and a little knobby in parts.

"Well, I mean, I think it's as healed as it will get," he continued. "Jack says he would usually fuse the bones together, use a real cast. . .but here there's no way to keep everything aligned properly. Anyway, the arm thinks its healed."

Sawyer nodded his head, and slowly attempted to flex his hand. His two middle fingers refused to bend. He kept his head down, blond hair in his eyes. Walt looked away, too, knowing that he wouldn't want to see the look of disappointment in the other man's eyes.

"So that's it then, huh?"

"Yeah. . .sorry," Walt said. Sawyer shrugged his shoulders and stood up, throwing blond hair out of his eyes.

"I'm fine," he said. His face didn't look fine, though, Walt thought, and was about to point that out when he heard a scream. Spinning around, he saw Alex, running, panting into the middle of the beach camp.

Not paying attention to anyone else, Walt leapt to his feet and ran toward her, catching her arms. "What is it, what's wrong?"

"B-bear," she breathed, shaking horribly. He wanted to put his arms around her, but knew it wouldn't help. And then she said the words, those dreaded words that everybody always said around him, "where's Jack?"

"Having an out with the girlfriend," Sawyer said, grabbing Kate's arm and using that leverage to help him up. "Now what do you mean, bear?"

But his question was answered as a large polar bear came blundering into camp. Alex screamed again, but instead of running away, she hurried to Locke's abandoned tent. She knelt down, and began fumbling with a box. Walt turned to Sawyer.

"Give me a gun!" he said. Sawyer held up his hands helplessly.

"Who says I've got them?"

"Sawyer!" Kate barked. The conman sighed, and glared at the polar bear. Then, nonchalantly, he pulled a 9mm out of the back of his pants.

"Dude. . ." Hurley said, wandering up behind him. "You still cart that thing around with you everywhere?"

Alex finally seemed to have found whatever she was looking for, since she jumped up. A moment later something silver went flying from her hand. Walt stared, wide-eyed, as one of Locke's large hunting knives headed straight toward the polar bear. With frightening dexterity, it turned and swiped down the knife with a paw, before turning and heading toward the terrified girl.

"Shoot!" Walt yelled at Sawyer. He looked on the ground for anything to throw at the bear, to try and distract it from its apparent mission of devouring Alex. "Shoot it!"

"Hold on, Shortie," Sawyer growled, sighting carefully. "We ain't exactly got refills for bullets. We ain't got many left."

Walt finally found a rock, and hurled it at the beast. The rock glanced harmlessly off its back haunch. Sawyer fired. The bullet had much more effect.

"Damn," Sawyer sighed, as the polar bear roared and spun around to face them. The conman slowly lowered the gun.

"Don't go soft on me now," Kate said. When she could tell that Sawyer wasn't going to respond, she grasped Diane tightly with one hand, and with the other grabbed the gun. "Sayonara," she said brightly, as she hit the trigger. Nothing happened.

"What. . ." she looked up at Sawyer.

"Told ya," he said. "They're a hot commodity."

"So what do we do?" Walt asked nervously. Alex had disappeared from sight. He hoped that she had run to somewhere safe. Right now, though, his own safety was in the front of his mind. The polar bear was not looking happy, and it was walking straight towards them.

"Well. . ." Sawyer drawled. "I recommend that we run."

Suiting words to actions, he grabbed Diane out of Kate's arms. The baby chose that moment to begin screaming. Hurley, meanwhile, was gasping painfully behind them. In a moment, though, he outstripped everyone, even laughing a little.

"What's so damn funny?" Sawyer asked.

"Coupla years ago I'd a been the fat one!" Hurley chortled gleefully. "The big old funny fat guy who gets eaten. Well, dudes, who's fat now?"

"Are you trying to tell me something?" Kate puffed from her position at the rear of the group.