Finally I post the next chapter! Laptop isdead, hence the fewer posts, not even been picked up by the stupid courier but the less said about angry phonecalls to him, the better 'eh?

I hope you all had a super christmas, I did. Tons of books, tons of DVDs and music and such so the inspiration has been flowing and I managed to wrangle the computer off my sister for a couple of hours to get this next part up. (she says 'You're welcome' btw, for letting me steal it for a few.)

Ana and Jack have a little chat. Not much happens as I decided to cut this chapter short and keep the final bit (which has a little bit more action than the load of chinwagging that's been going on). The plot is about to thicken, so if you're still with me be prepared for stuff to really get going in the next few chapters.

Thank you all for your continuing, lovely reviews and comments and hopefully this chapter won't disappoint.

Thanks again for reading!

Chapter 6.

"Mind if I join you, ladies?"

His voice wasn't as deep as Sawyer's was, but the distinct maleness of it made the irrational hope that it somehow was the Southerner come back from his foolish adventure, burn as bright within her as the fire that she shared with Claire did before her.

She looked up at his face, realising that it was Jack and quelling her foolish hope that it was Sawyer, scolding herself for it even, before looking away to the flames.

Her blonde Australian companion sucked her lower lip into her mouth, suppressing one of her brilliant smiles as her gaze flickered back and forth between Ana-Lucia and the doctor standing patient and enquiring upon the edge of their circle of light that served to keep back the growing darkness. They had conversed all day. Ana had allowed herself to get lost in the friendly chatter of the young mother and time had flown away causing her surprise when she glanced up and found it nearing night.

"Sure, pull up a sand dune." she murmured finally and his face broke into a smile that stimulated Claire's into a soft laugh of delight. He placed his medical bag down, a beaten leather hand luggage bag that had belonged to one of the less than fortunate passengers who hadn't survived the crash, before sinking to the sand opposite from the two women and the sleeping baby lying in a nest of blankets between them.

"So," he smiled again, passing the friendly gesture back and forth between them as he spoke. "I was in the neighbourhood, checking up on Shannon actually, and I thought I'd finish my rounds tonight and check up on Aaron and your nose." His finger made a sweeping arc upwards, starting from the sleeping boy and moving to indicate Ana's face, causing her to press at it with light fingertips self-consciously. A wide white strip of surgical tape still lay across the fracture that Kate had given her, but the swelling had disappeared, gone down a few days after the break itself had occurred and the bruising was all but gone, the faintest shadow of yellow and purple still haunting her bronze, otherwise flawless skin.

"Sure you did." Ana's eyes narrowed in good-humoured sarcasm, a smirk curling one corner of her slightly open mouth. "Aaron's fine and my nose is, what did you say? 'Healing up nicely', last time I came to see you about it." She raised her chin, jerking it at him in gentle challenge and causing Claire to giggle again quietly at the exchange. "You just came to check up on us, right? To keep us out of trouble."

Jack released his embarrassed amusement in small, soundless snorts of air down his nose, smile turned to the sandy ground to keep the flush upon his cheeks, at being so easily read, hidden.

"Alright," he allowed himself to chuckle lightly, hand palms coated in a golden layer of sand as he raised them in self-defence. "I want to make sure that everyone is okay after today."

'That you are okay,' his eyes told her as they returned to her face, taking Claire in swiftly beforehand and he clapped his palms together, relieving them of their gritty veneer.

It was Ana's turn to feel heat, and not that from the campfire, high upon her cheeks because of his words.

"I'm fine." She replied, turning her gaze to her blonde companion in a desperate attempt at covering over her words she had realised how she had responded. "What about you, Mama Mia?"

Claire rolled her vivid blue eyes in a mute gesture of annoyance at Ana's nickname for her, though her teeth shone out bright in a wide grin, juxtaposed with her ire and betraying that it was mostly feigned.

"You really have been spending too much time around Sawyer," she laughed, lowering her voice conspiratorially as she continued, leaning in closer to Ana. "I think he's…rubbing off on you!"

Jack's cough served to bring his discomfort at the conversation topic to Ana's attention even if Claire remained oblivious to it entirely.

"I'm good and Aaron is fine. Sleeping actually. For the first time in days!" the Australian mother paused to gaze down lovingly at her son before resuming her speech and smiling back up at her companions. "I think he likes Ana's voice. You know, like he did with Sawyer's." she chuckled again, quietly, to herself almost. "Although I have to say, Ana's much more fun for me to talk with than Sawyer was!"

Jack's reaction to the second mention of the absentee Southerner in question was interrupted by a sudden harsh, staged whisper that did little to preserve the quiet and footsteps from behind them drawing their stares apart and over in the direction of the other beach dwellings.

"Claire! Shouldn't the baby be asleep?" Charlie's hissing whisper demanded as he stopped before them, scuffing sand as he drew to a halt. His stubbled jaw clenched tight and dark blue eyes hard with either concern or exasperation.

"He is asleep." Claire retorted, a cold tone that Ana did not recognise entering her voice and turning her smile into a blank, glazed over look.

"Oh, right. Well, I mean in his cot." Charlie's eye shifted back and forth nervously taking in the forms of Ana-Lucia and Jack staring back at him as he spoke, standing upon the edge of light that the fire cast out like a protective bubble. "D'you want me to take him back? It's fine if you want some time to yourself." His blue eyes flickered over Ana once more and warily, obviously he was one of the survivors who had deemed her likely to try and shoot someone whenever she had the chance. "Y'know, of you want to talk with…" Swallow. Hard. "…Ana some more."

Claire sought out the dark eyed gaze of her hostess and rolled her eyes before slowly climbing to her feet and scooping Aaron's sleeping form up gently.

"No, that's all right, Charlie. I'm quite capable of looking after my baby myself." She replied finally, biding Ana and Jack 'goodnight' with a weary nod before taking off at a swift march across the sand to the one place that Charlie didn't dare follow her uninvited…inside her shelter. Though her mood didn't stop him from hovering outside the premises like a fly over a rubbish bin.

Ana-Lucia watched them go, shaking her head and giving an incredulous snort that wrested the attention of the doctor sat opposite her, from the squabbling Charlie and Claire.

"You think they're funny?" Jack hazarded a guess, a reason for her near silent laughter and Ana's gaze flickered back to him as she smiled, with another half snort, and shook her head.

"I think it's sad, really." She responded, hand finding it's way blindly to gripping onto the thin, long branch that she had previously been using to stoke the fire with and resumed the task once more. "Charlie wants to help her to get rid of his demons and Claire doesn't want him to help to get rid of her own." She turned her eyes back towards their subject of conversation briefly with another sorrowful shake of her head. "They're just winding each other up at the moment."

"It works for you and Sawyer." Jack shot at her, perhaps before he could stop himself or thought better of the comment for he snapped his mouth shut firmly after the last word had left his lips and regarded her with as much surprise as if she had posed such a criticism to him.

She considered him carefully for a long, extended heartbeat, loathed to discuss her relationship with Sawyer with Jack of all people. She knew which route the conversation was liable to take, especially considering Jack's reputation as the concerned leader, wanting to make certain that everyone was okay. And suddenly she knew exactly why he had decided to 'finish his rounds' that evening. Not to check up on Claire or Aaron or even her nose-break. He had come to find out how she was coping in the aftermath of Sawyer.

"It does work for us," she responded to his observation, calmly and charily, shifting slightly to throw another log onto the blaze to keep the flames burning high and hot and maintain the barrier between them. It wasn't that she distrusted Jack. Of course he was merely being compassionate, perhaps thinking that she needed someone to talk to about events. And he had Kate now, with whom he seemed happy in the company of. And she herself had chosen Sawyer over the good doctor when Jack had apparently developed an interest in her. None of that stopped her from acknowledging the reasons why she had liked him to begin with. Why she had spoken to him in the airport bar.

He was a looker. Maybe not as roguish as Sawyer, and perhaps lacking that rugged, rough an' ready charm that Ana covertly lusted after in the Southerner. But Jack was handsome. Traditionally so. Whereas Sawyer oozed sex-appeal, Jack subconsciously boasted charisma. Smoothness over a granite hardness in opposition to Sawyer's velvet over sharpness.

What was she doing comparing them? She had made her decision weeks ago, perhaps even that first day that Sawyer had beckoned her into his tent with a 'Hey Girl-Fight' and a knowing smirk that had drawn her in despite her anger. Ensnared her. Captured her. His entire approach to her had captured her. Maybe she had known from the beginning, maybe she had allowed herself to be captivated from their first ever true battle of the wills. Had the pain lanced words telling her that he would kill her if she ever hit him again, stirred something deep inside her that she had never thought she would feel again? Was that the reason that she had replied to him, not with fists and tongue blazing, but with a flirtatious smirk that she had often puzzled over herself?

Ana shook her head, breaking herself out of her thoughts of Sawyer and their wild, curious courtship…if it could be called that. She was still angry with him for leaving her behind. Still furious that he had supported Kate over her…or at least she was supposed to be. With every passing moment that she mulled over past goings-on, she felt the white-hot fury within her dwindling into concern.

"But Sawyer and I…We have...ways of relieving the tension. We work well together when we want the same thing." She continued her stunted reply to Jack's prying observation and at the mention of her more intimate dealings with Sawyer, the doctor simultaneously allowed a flush to break out across his cheeks and his eyes to darken.

"Not judging from your display at the caves yesterday. Or from what Hurley tells me of your little scuffle last night." Jack came back, a little more harshly than he had intended, surprising himself as well as well as Ana who ground her back teeth together in mounting irritation until his features softened. Regret for his outburst or simply pity for her situation. Not two full weeks into a proper relationship and already they were separated and having more than teething problems.

"Everyone has their moments, Jack." She responded tiredly, rubbing at her forehead with her free hand. "We just had ours a little sooner than the norm."

He nodded in acceptance of her words, of her loyalty to Sawyer despite what had happened.

"If you ever need to talk to anyone, you know I'm-"

"I won't." she responded like lightening, her pride more than anything bristling at his half made offer.

Standing from his seat in the cooling sand, he paused to brush himself free from it's clinging grains.

"Your nose is fine," he murmured, rubbing at the corner of his eye with his index finger, suddenly distancing himself from her. Respecting her privacy that she had made clear she wanted. "I'll need you to take a shift at the hatch now that…they've gone. Either tonight or tomorrow. Whichever suits. I think Libby is finishing up there in about a half hour…"

Ana nodded to him in response.

"I'll go now," she replied, nodding once more to fill the slightly awkward pause between them. She felt the need to see the face of the blonde psychologist for some reason, though they had never been particularly friendly. She just needed to feel reassured by the therapeutic words of someone older and wiser that herself. Someone that was not Jack, Sawyer's rival in almost every aspect. But also, she didn't feel that she could sleep. Not in their shelter while he was absent, roaming the paths of the jungle.

"If you need anything," Jack began, his voice still soft with regret that she had chosen not to speak with him and get the things that weighed her down off her chest. "Or if you...change your mind, you know where I am." And he began his slow, striding walk across the sand towards the trees, not looking back. Not daring to after Ana had made her reticence clear. He was backing off from their curious friendship, that could have possibly gone on to be more than friendship if she permitted it. And she was glad for it. She had made the decision to keep him at arm's length, not only out of respect for Sawyer, though she reminded herself that she didn't owe Sawyer anything really (they probably weren't even going to last. Part time lovers at best) but because she didn't trust herself. Jack seemed to have the innate ability to pry truths out from her that she had kept so deeply hidden that she barely realised them herself. At least with Libby she could hold her tongue. Jack made her want to spill all of her secrets, old and new, and that she could not allow until she had puzzled over them fully and locked them away safely. She didn't trust herself not to admit something to the tall, pensive doctor that she wasn't quite sure that she wanted to admit that she felt for Sawyer just yet.

-oOo-