The first thing that woke him was the heat. The back of his neck prickled as the sun beat down on him. He didn't know how long he lay there, as his senses returned to him, before he opened his eyes. Searing pain shot through his head as light flooded his vision and he brought his hand up to shade his eyes.

Luka rolled over onto his back, his hand still across his eyes. His entire body ached, and there was a throbbing pain in his leg and side. His throat was sore and there was a slightly sick feeling in his stomach, telling him he'd probably swallowed a lot of salt water. Slowly, his eyes still shut, he raised himself up onto his elbows. His head swam slightly, but he ignored it, squinting out at his surroundings.

He was lying on a beach at the shoreline, most of his legs still in the water, facing out to sea. Turning around, he saw more sand stretching about fifty metres, and behind that green vegetation. The throbbing in his head started to clear and he slowly took his hand away from his eyes. To his left, the beach curved around until it was swallowed up in the distance. On his right, the beach ran for about twenty metres, before jutting out into a thin peninsula, then after that continuing as beach. Everything else was water and a magnificently blue sky.

Luka saw something sitting on the tide line of the peninsula. From here he couldn't tell what it was, and he would have to move soon, so he slowly pulled himself up, swaying slightly as he reached his full height. Looking down, he saw he'd lost one of his shoes, and the sock was hanging limply, half off his foot already. He reached down and pulled off the sock, along with the shoe and sock on his other foot.

The sand was warm beneath his feet, and reminded him of his childhood, growing up on the Adriatic coast. Slowly, he set off along the beach, undoing the half of the buttons on his shirt, letting the warm air play on his chest softly. He walked quite slowly, half because he was still taking in his surroundings, and half because he felt like he had the world's worst hangover.

When he finally reached the peninsula, he looked back and saw his footprints leading away from a small black pile of foot attire. Other than that there were no other footprints on the beach, no other signs of humanity. He sighed and turned back to look at the object he was heading towards. Now he was closer he recognised it, and set off jogging slowly towards it.

He reached the rucksack and flopped down next to it, picking it up out the water. It was wet through, but he ignored this, ripping the bag open. A small smile spread across his face. It was his bag. He remembered now. When the plane hit the water he'd been down near the cockpit. He had tried to drag the flight attendant out with him as the plan filled with water and sank, or one of the other passengers, but he was running out of oxygen and they were panicking. As he swam up the plane, he'd seen the open overheard compartment, the same one Susan had gotten the life raft out of. Inside had been his bag. He'd grabbed the bag and with his remaining strength, swum out of the opening.

Inside were two bottles of water, a spare shirt and a machete. He, Carter and Pratt had all bought one at the market. At the time, it had seemed a stupid memento that would just be flung in a cupboard when they got home. Now, he thanked Pratt for spotting the knives on the stall. Carter had pointed out that they'd probably get confiscated at the airport, but they'd bought them anyway. Thankfully Pratt's smooth talking with the female airport worker (carefully translated by Luka) had worked. Even if he was found and rescued in a few days, the machete would be a crucial tool until then, without which, food would be very hard to find.

He took a bottle of water from the bag and opened it, swallowing some of the contents gratefully. The cool water soothed his throat, and he could feel it travel right down to his stomach, cooling and calming as it went.

Luka sat back on the sand, looking out at the sea. He had a sudden thought about his friends. Had they all gotten on the life raft? Were they all alright? Had they been found? He sighed and gazed out at the ocean, not watching anything in particular, letting the small tide lap at his feet. More than anything he hated uncertainty. At least if its bad news you can deal with it, it's the not knowing that'll screw you up.

It took a while before Luka paid any attention to the small orange shape drifting into his view. Slowly, as he raised his head, he realised what it was. The life raft, drifting slowly. It wasn't close, but Luka had swum greater distances.

He didn't think, just jumped to his feet, pulled off his shirt, and tucked the half drunk bottle into his waistband. He ran the length of the peninsula, and didn't stop when he reached the water. When it was deep enough, he dived into the sea and started to swim.

If it hadn't been such a drastic situation, Luka would have relished the feeling as he swam. He'd loved the water all his life, and some of his earliest memories were swimming out in the Adriatic with his father and brother.

After a while, he could feel his muscles tightening and starting to protest. But he was halfway there, he couldn't stop now. His trousers started to get heavy, not helping the situation. He was in half a mind to pull them off and go on without them, but he didn't fancy the idea of having to stay on the beach in just a shirt and a pair of boxers.

His muscles were screaming in agony as he finally reached the raft, and he barely had enough energy to keep going for the last ten metres.

"Hey!" He shouted, swallowed a lot of seawater in the process. He dragged himself the last few metres as a head appeared from behind the opening to the raft. A very tired looking Carter squinted out into the daylight.

"Shit! It's Luka." He shouted his eyes widening. Luka made it to the raft and grabbed onto the rope that ran around the outside, holding on as though his life depended on it. He was utterly exhausted and there were tiny black dots swimming in front of his eyes.

He heard more voices from inside the raft but didn't pay attention to them, gulping in lungful after lungful of air. It was only when he felt hands reaching down to him, taking hold of his shoulders did he pay any attention to his surroundings. He was lifted out of the water and into the raft, the sudden movement making him inhale water, which he coughed up the moment he hit the floor. He lay on the bottom of the raft for a moment, trying to return his breathing to normal.

Finally he pulled himself up into a sitting position and dragged his legs, which didn't seem to be working, with him to lean against the side of the raft. Just as he'd leaned against the side of the raft he felt someone rush up to him and hug him tighter than he'd ever been hugged in his life. Looking down he realised the little brown head belonged to Abby.

"Hey," he said tiredly, "Having fun?"

Hi, just wanna add that Abby and Luka aren't going out, Sam and Luka, as in my happy little world never went out, Abby and Carter aren't going out, Carter and Kem broke up Jing-Mei and Pratt are in their kinda Jing-Mei Pratt place and Susan's with Chuck