A/N
Written for two challenges on the Golden Snitch forum:

-the Character Admiration Tournament, Team Light. Task: Ronald Weasley is shipwrecked on a deserted island.

-the Prompt of the Day. Prompt: (object) necklace

For the purpose of the main Task (the shipwrecking) let's pretend this is a muggle!AU ;)

WC: 741

Ron regained consciousness, opened his eyes, and started spitting and coughing savagely. He didn't make any effort to look at anything for he was not sure to be able to see anything; his head was thumping and an odd fog still filled his eyes. His clothes were soaking wet.

Oxygen.

Air.

He needed oxygen!

He desperately tried to keep air flowing into his lungs as he kept coughing. But he couldn't feel it... He felt no benefit from it! He felt nothing, really.

His heart was racing, hurting his ribcage and deafening him. All he could hear was that loud thump, thump, thump.

He brought his hands to his throat that felt like it was burning. He barely recognized his skin, covered with sweat and sharp saltiness. Maybe he could still feel something, but he needed to calm down.

He was in a pitiful state, he knew it.

He didn't understand... where he was... what was going on...

He forced himself to blink and relax.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

This time, it was going better.

Keep like that, Ron. Calm down. He blinked, and he could swear there were two figures in fron of him—his best friends, but the voice was definitely Hermione's, he realized with a little smirk; it was laced with fondness but he could still hear a bit of condescension that didn't bother him anymore. He loved her just the way she were.

And honestly, he wouldn't have minded having Harry and Hermione by his side. Together. As always.

As soon as he blinked again, and the fog left his vision, the apparitions were gone, and he found himself alone.

Now, everything was clearer. He could feel the sand, the air filling his lungs, his heartbeat slowing down, and the pain in his right arm that was bleeding.

Things were starting to make sense in his mind too.

The plane... had crashed.

Ron ran his hand through his hair that were full of sand.

He looked around and suddenly he spotted something glittering: Hermione's necklace.

Hermione! he furiously thought.

They had been together on that bloody plane.

Where was she?

He slowly stood up, feeling his body tremble and his head twirling.

He needed to find her.

Was she alive? Or was she, he gulped, dead?

"HERMIONE!" he called, hoping she would answer.

That is, assuming she's on this island, he reminded himself. Alive, the last word thundered menacingly in his head.

He tightened his grip on her necklace.

"HERMIONE! WHERE ARE YOU?"

No one answered.

He could only hear the wind, the waves crashing against the shore, the birds singing, and his own panting.

He felt in a dream—a nightmare—where everything was confused, odd. Even his own body felt foreign sometimes as he kept walking.

Wandering around wasn't a good idea at all. But he needed to find his Hermione.

Only then, he realized how tired, how terribly tired he was.

He yawned.

Closing his eyes and falling asleep would have been so easy. So easy...

He stumbled, and the necklace fell.

He quickly picked it up.

Hermione. Hermione. Hermione.

He needed to keep going.

For her.

He should have saved her. He should save her

He forced himself to walk faster, ignoring the pain, the hunger, the thirst.

There was something he had never said to her, and he needed to.

"Hermione!"

"Ron?"

He was too dizzy to understand where that voice came from and startled, he turned around.

Maybe he had just dreamed.

Suddenly, something crashed him making him fall on the ground. He instinctively closed his eyes, biting back a cry of pain.

"I can't believe it. You are here," Hermione's voice whispered, her body pressed against his in a tangle of limbs. "I thought..."

"I'm sorry." Ron moved them so that his back was now leaned against a tree and Hermione in his lap. "Me too. How are you?"

"I'm fine now that you are here. You?"

"Me too. Me too."

Hermione smiled.

"I love you," he said out of nowhere. "I should have said it sooner. I don't know why I waited so much. I feared—"

"Hush." She kissed him.

"Marry me!"

"What? Ron, we are on a desert island," she said as if he could have missed it.

"So what?"

She looked at him. Then, she laughed, a fondly one. "Yeah, so what?"

Err, sorry, but I realized I really didn't know how to end this, and I don't feel like expanding on this right now. But I guess I'd go down with two scenarios: either they're found and saved or they peacefully live there (I don't feel like dealing with cannibalistic tribes either :P). So this is the end for now.