A few hours later, Maddy made it back to the beach camp. Kate was chopping wood. Angrily, it seemed to Maddy.

"Hi," Maddy said.

Kate put down the ax and wiped her brow. "Welcome back. Are you all right? Have you worked everything out for yourself?"

"Um," Maddy said. "I don't know about that. But I decided that the best thing to do would be to lend Sayid my compass and not go with him. I'm not sure I'm happy about it. We'll have to see. Is everything all right here?"

Kate was about to open her mouth to say: No, everything is not all right here. I helped Sawyer get into clean clothes. I got his food and helped him eat. I sat with him when the pain got really bad, and it didn't stop him from coming on to me. I can't handle that right now, so I'm taking out my frustrations on this poor, innocent, log.

Instead, she said, "No, everything's fine. I think Sawyer might use some company, though."

Maddy nodded. "I can read to him his book," she said, and headed for Sawyer's tent.

Kate went back to her chopping and was even more upset at sending that poor kid into Sawyer's clutches. Who knows what he'd say to her. But she decided that she needed time to think, time away from him. She'd bring him his meals, and visit from time to time to check his bandages, but that was it.

"Sawyer?" Maddy said.

His eyes were closed and he looked like he might be sleeping. But he answered. "As much as I'd love to get up and chat about your adventures, munchkin, I think I'm going to take a little nap instead."

"Okay, I'll go and . . . do something," Maddy said.

"No!" Sawyer said. Then, more calmly: "No, it's okay. You can stay if you like. This here's Gilligan's Grand Hotel compared to the rest of the place."

"Oh!" Maddy said. Then she starting laughing. And laughing. She fell down on the floor and slapped at it, the laughter wracking her body, tears streaming out of her eyes. She laughed and laughed.

When she finally trailed away into giggles, she lay on the floor with her arms and legs relaxed like she'd just finished a strenuous yoga class.

"Oh, my God," she said. "Gilligan's Grand Hotel."

"Munchkin, at first I thought you were having a seizure there," Sawyer said.

Maddy sat up and crossed her legs Indian style. "I need that," she said. "I can't believe nobody once compared us to Gilligan's Island. Let's see. Jack is the Skipper. Kate is Mary Anne. Shannon is Ginger. Sayid is the Professor. That Korean couple are the Howells. But who's Gilligan?"

Sawyer frowned. "How old are you again? Twelve?"

Maddy ignored him. She hummed the intro bars to the Gilligan's Island theme song then started: "Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip. That started on this tropic shore aboard this tiny ship—"

"Enough!" Sawyer bellowed. "If you're going to keep being like this I'm going to have to start calling you Little Mary Sunshine. Or Pollyanna."

Maddy stopped singing. "I'm going to let your insults go because I know you're in pain and you're upset and you don't mean what you're saying. I'm going to go down to the beach and sing a while by myself. Then I'm going up to the inland camp and do a little looking around. I remember what you said before and I think I just might have a future in that department. Next time you'll call me Ms. Hari." Maddy paused. "Do you think people really called her that or was that her code name? Whatever. After that I'll bring back some lunch and then I'll read to you from the book. How does that sound?"

"Organized," Sawyer said. "What are you, some kind of efficiency expert?"

"No, but I did read Cheaper by the Dozen a zillion times when I was a kid. Did you read it?"

"No. I think I liked you better scared and confused."

Maddy's face fell. "I will be again soon, I'm sure. And will you be here to comfort me?"

"Sure, munchkin," Sawyer said and mustered up half a smile. But it ended in a wince.

Maddy nodded then took her leave, doing exactly what she had told Sawyer she was planning on doing.

And thus went the week. Maddy kept to a fairly rigid schedule of taking care of Sawyer which kept Kate away from him, for which Kate was grateful, but could never admit.

There were times that the pain got so bad that Maddy had to work desperately to distract him from it, even if it meant antagonizing him. And then there were the nights that Maddy couldn't sleep because she was petrified of what was going to happen, her anxious mind running on overdrive. Those nights Maddy crept into Sawyer's shelter without waking him, his physical presence and the sound of his breathing were enough to calm her nerves.

Day by day Maddy and Sawyer got more comfortable with each other, more friendly. And each day Maddy took to wearing less and less clothing. By the end of the week she was down to a bikini and a basically see-through wrap. Though she always put on jeans and a t-shirt when she left Sawyer's tent.

One morning Sawyer said to Maddy, "I'd like to get up and take a walk around. I feel like I've been cooped up in here like a chicken being fattened for the kill."

"Are you sure you're up to it?" Maddy asked, worried. "Maybe I should get Jack down here, have him look at the wound, see how it's healing."

"No doctor," Sawyer said. He leaned forward in his seat and put his hand on Maddy's thigh to stop her from standing up. "I know how I feel. That's good enough."

Maddy looked down at Sawyer's hand on her leg which he still hadn't removed. Then Sawyer looked at it, almost as though he hadn't realized what he was doing. They both stared at it and then at each, both wondering the same thing: what does this mean? What do I want? What should we do? What should I say without making a fool of myself?

"Really?" Maddy said, eventually.

"Why not?" Sawyer said casually.

"What about Kate?"

"Kate is my Sayid. You can't force someone to do something they don't want to do," Sawyer said and Maddy shuddered, remembering her last night with Ryan.

Sawyer assumed the shudder was in response to him and he quickly pulled his hand away, and added, "Not Kate, not you, not anybody."

"Oh, no, I know. No, I didn't think you would. I just was—whatever, not important. I think we should talk about this before we do anything."

"Sure, munchkin, I understand that women need to talk about their feelings first."

Maddy rolled her eyes. "How many condoms do you have?" she said.

"Or not," Sawyer grinned. "I'd say about a hundred."

Now Maddy's eyes widened. "Wow. Well, I'm not going to ask where they came from. Now, let's do the math. If we had sex once a week, a hundred condoms would last two years. And after that, nothing, because I can't have a baby. I'm not ready yet. Maybe in two years I will be, but from this perspective, no way. Though other women will have to be willing to have babies. We can't have Claire's baby growing up all alone. Assuming that it lives. That's another problem. With no medicine, we're in trouble. Childbirth will be painful and dangerous. These things have to be worked out," she said.

"You've sitting been sitting out in the sun so much that your brain is starting to fry. I thought you were sure we'd be rescued sometime soon. Now you've got us setting up house for two years or more," Sawyer said.

"I can't help it. I think a lot," Maddy said.

"We've got to get your mind off this morbid stuff. A drink might help." Sawyer paused. "That gives me an idea. I can bang together some kind of still. You can make booze out of just about anything."

"That's a bad idea," Maddy said. "I'm not going to drink." She crossed her arms over her chest. "You wanted to go for a walk. Why don't we do that and forget we had this conversation?"

In a flash, Sawyer leaned forward and kissed Maddy tenderly on the mouth. Then he pulled away and whispered, "I can't think about that now. If you don't want to use up any condoms, there are other things we can do instead."

That was also a bit too reminscent of Ryan. She had worked so hard to get what happened out her system. She had tried so hard to get the party girl she'd become out of her system. And now here was another man asking her to be that way again. He wanted to get her drunk and have sex with her. Well, she wouldn't do it.

"I've never done that," she said truthfully, adding, "I'm not about to start now."

Sawyer immediately sat back, away from Maddy. "Okay, munchkin. I guess a walk'll have to do."

"Okay? That's it? You're not going to try to seduce me?" Maddy asked, surprised. Maybe Sawyer was some kind of gentleman.

"Only if you want me to. Remember what I said before—I don't force women into anything," Sawyer said and grinned like he was a shark and Maddy was a little fish. "Hmm, looks like the confused munchkin is back. I told you I liked it."

Now Maddy was really confused. She had grown attracted to Sawyer and she even vaguely respected him, but she didn't know if doing this would be something she would regret later. And what about Kate? Sawyer loved Kate, she was sure of it, the same way that she loved Sayid. This was a temporary arrangement, then. Though, she imagined, things could change. It's not like either was going off to war and we promised to be faithful to them while they're gone. If Kate wanted Sawyer, then she should make up her mind about him already insteading of dangling herself like bait only to pull away at the last minute.

"Hold me," Maddy said. It wasn't an answer, but a start.

Sawyer pulled Maddy into a hug. It was mostly one armed because his wounded bicep still ached a bit, but he pressed Maddy against his chest and rested his head on top hers. He stroked her arm lightly. It was nearly platonic, just two people so lonely and scared and far away from home making sure that they were still alive and breathing.

And that's what Maddy did—she listened to Sawyer's heartbeat, and the breath going in and out of his lungs. She barely felt her arm being stroked. Sawyer was a real person. And so was she.

"No," she whispered. "No, I don't want to."

Sawyer accepted Maddy's rejection gracefully. Instead they took a walk over to where Kate was stoking the bonfire.

"Maddy, it's almost noon. Why don't you see if you can scare us up some lunch?" Sawyer said.

"Sure," Maddy said, and off she went. She wondered if Sawyer would tell Kate what had just happened between the two of them. If he were a gentleman he wouldn't kiss and tell. She hoped he really was.

At the inland camp Maddy walked easily among the people, all of whom basically ignored her. She'd spoken to Jack a couple of times when he'd come to check on Sawyer. She'd spoken to Michael way back when he was helping Jack to arrange this inland camp. She'd spoken to Hurley when he just came up to her out of the blue one day and asked her where she was from. She answered politely but not particularly openly. Hurley had gotten the hint and quickly bowed out of the conversation. She was sure none of those three men would remember her that distinctly.

The one person who might recognize her was Locke. She could tell that he keenly observed everything and everybody—better than her even. Whenver she came up to get supper, she always made sure to be at the end of the line so she could have a legitimate excuse to listen to what people were saying. She was sure Locke had noticed that too.

There was one particular topic that seemed to be a major one under discussion that Maddy could hear, and she didn't like it one bit. It seemed that even though everyone found out that Sawyer didn't have Shannon's asthma medications at all, they were angry over what they perceived at his hoarding of things that might be idenitifiable as belonging to people who survived the crash. But more than that, people didn't like the idea that some people had more "stuff" than others whether because it was legitimately theirs or because they'd scavenged it. People were saying they wanted everyone to give up their stuff so it could all be parcelled out fairly.

There were other things they were saying, peripherally, that Maddy also didn't like. Like that they thought that there had to be some kind of ruling council to make decisions and to set schedules and assign tasks, and to start building more permanent structures.

Maddy numbly stood in line for food. While it seemed like a logical thing to do to regimentize their lives, Maddy thought that a ruling council meant playing politics, playing favorites, playing one person against another. And that was dangerous.

And worst of all was this divvying up idea. Nobody was going to take her stuff. Nobody