A/N: I just want to say to everyone how happy I am with all the response that I have gotten. This story is for you guys! And to answer a question I received, it did take them two days to get back to camp, I just skipped a day, that's all. Lost does that all the time.

Jack didn't fully comprehend what Mr. Eko had said until after he agreed to what he offered. He could only watch as the African man grabbed two guns and handed one to him. Not come back? He had fought to do just that, but deep down he knew that he had to return to his fellow survivors because they needed him just as much as Kate did.

It had been nearly a week since her disappearance, and he heard the talk of the others. Kate surely had to be dead, or close to death by now. There just couldn't be a way she could be so far out in the jungle on her own alive at this time. No one was that amazing.

Every time he heard that he wanted to run to the person and introduce him to his fist. How dare they suggest that Kate couldn't take care of herself. He knew she had spent some time on the run; she could keep herself alive there. Being stranded on an island wasn't any different. Especially an island that was much different than any other.

"We should go now, before any of the others notice our absence," Mr. Eko announced, walking calmly to the door, straining his ear outside before going out, making sure no one else was there.

Jack silently agreed, following him to the door. Mr. Eko opened the door slowly, as if afraid to let in an invisible danger known only to him.

"No one's here. We can go," Jack pointed out, impatience settling in. He was glad to have the help of the great tracker, but the need to find Kate overrode that. They needed to go now just to get to the spot where the search party had given up.

Mr. Eko turned to face him. "We need to make sure we are not followed. If any of the others know about this then it is over for all of us."

Jack didn't bother asking him what that meant. He knew deep in his heart what the man was talking about.

Satisfied, Mr. Eko started on, Jack at his heels. He wasn't used to being the one that followed, and found the position slightly unnerving yet oddly relaxing.

"Do you know which way you went on your first trip out here?" Mr. Eko asked calmly, staring into Jack's eyes as though searching for the answer there.

Jack nodded. "We saw this clearing about ten minutes in, and we just kept going straight for a couple miles or so. Do you think there is still a trail after all this time?"

Mr. Eko didn't answer right away. Instead he hurried over to the patch of land that Jack had indicated and squatted down to look over the ground in a manner that reminded Jack of Locke.

"It is very vague, and there are many other sets of prints, but if I follow yours for a while, we can get to where you stopped maybe by dark then continue from there in the morning," Eko explained, glancing up at Jack in a manner that suggested he knew Jack wouldn't turn this offer down.

"Okay." He didn't spare another thought for it. Instead he and Eko hurried off together, never tearing their eyes away from the ground.

Kate looked behind her through the side window of the beat-up pickup truck she was riding in. Beside her, Ray was uneasily looking at the road, knowing that the woman sitting beside him knew he had betrayed her.

"How long have you known?" Kate demanded, unable to keep the hurt out of her voice.

Ray hesitated before answering, knowing he can't lie to her. "A couple o' days. I saw your picture in the post office. Like I said, I have a hell of a mortgage, Annie."

"My name's not Annie," Kate replies coldly, watching in her side mirror as the Marshal pulls up beside them, visibly taunting her even from different cars.

Desperate to find a way out, Kate lunges for the steering wheel, swerving the truck off the road and into a ditch. Kate seems to be unharmed, maybe a couple of scratches, but Ray is unconscious, much to her horror.

Kate pulls out the farmer from the truck, which is close to exploding and drags him back up to the side of the road. Just as she catches her breath she hears the click of a gun, and knows that the Marshal is beside her, and there is no escape. It's all over.

The unwanted memory passed through her eyes for the second time on the island, as unwanted this time as the first. Kate didn't answer the man, not even sure how to.

"You don't have to answer. You did the right thing no matter how you see it. You save his life, yet you receive no ounce of gratitude from anyone. Not the Marshal, not the authorities in Australia. Good deeds are hard to come by nowadays, and are often overlooked."

Kate glared at him, not wanting to listen to any more of his words, but found that she was agreeing with him. Everything he had said so far was true. No one had ever said thank you for saving Ray's life, not that she had been expecting one. No one recently had been giving out any gratitude for all they had been given. She didn't even know the last time Jack had said thank you to her.

Tom smiled to the other man in the room, knowing he was getting through to Kate. It was all too easy. "Yes. The truth hurts, doesn't it? You had only wanted to help. You wanted to go with Jack to look for Michael, but he said no. Just made that decision for you like he was in charge of you. I'd bet everything I have that he gave up looking for you a couple days ago. I mean, there are more of your survivors out there than just you. He can't spend all his energy searching for you. What do you think? Do you think he's still out there?"

A tear slid down her cheek as she slowly shook her head. "No," she whispered, almost inaudibly, but Tom knew what she said.

"Don't get me wrong. He did assemble a search party and spent a few days out here looking for you. He was so close too," Tom let out a bitter laugh, a laugh which made Kate look up and stare hardly into his eyes.

"Jack was here? How do you know that?" she demanded.

"You can't think your little group are the only ones with lookouts, people willing to go somewhere."

Kate closed her eyes, trying to get the tears that were forming to disappear before they could see that they were breaking her down. Damn it, she should've been stronger than this! How could she just let her wall deteriorate in a matter of hours?

She didn't want to admit that they had a point. She didn't want to give in to their obvious truths. She didn't want to let go of her trust in Jack, and she certainly didn't want to let go of her hope that Jack was still out there somewhere, trying to find her, even though she hadn't wanted to be found.

She almost wished that she had let Sawyer follow her instead of shoo him away that day almost a week ago when she had felt so damaged that she had convinced herself that the only way she could move on was to leave the people that cared about her in a way she hadn't felt in such a long time.

"You must be hungry. I'll have someone bring up a plate of something. In the meantime, I will let you dwell upon all that I have told you. You can make your decision in the morning," Tom declared as he stood up importantly, making his presence full throughout the room even as he made to exit.

"Decision about what?" Kate demanded coldly, her anger coming second only to her confusion.

But Tom and the other man was out of the cell before Kate could get a real answer.

Sayid paced the beach, trying to figure out what to do next. He had never felt as helpless as he did just now. He wanted to talk to Jack, to see if there was anything at all he could do, but everyone he had spoken to since the search party had arrived back had told him that their doctor needed to sort out his thoughts alone.

He wanted Jack to know that he certainly wasn't alone in his pain. That there were so many others who were hurting from their loss of Kate. Jack had a way about him; he wanted to keep his burdens to himself, and Sayid wanted to take some of it away from him, just as Jack had done for him when Shannon had passed.

His insides boiled as he thought of his last love and the woman who had done it to her. He hadn't been at all surprised when he had discovered that Ana Lucia hadn't joined the search team in their efforts to find Kate. Sayid had basked in his silent victory. Maybe now the others would see that the leader of the tail section wasn't to be trusted at all.

But he couldn't think about her. He couldn't let his mind wander from the task at hand. Kate was his main priority, and he wanted to put all his efforts into finding her. He just couldn't figure out a way to do that from the beach. Frustrated, he turned from the others to enlist the help of the last person he would ever turn to.

Danielle Rousseau.

"We are close." Eko hadn't spoken for the last hour, and Jack knew better than to interrupt.

Jack lifted his head up and stared at what Eko was staring at. "How do you know?" he questioned.

"This is where your two teams met up again, is it not?" he asked.

Jack nodded. He had been explaining the findings (and losses) of the search party's attempts and actions whenever Eko had asked him.

"We met up, and about ten minutes later Locke announced that Kate had been taken by the Others," Jack explained briefly, hoping something useful would come out of this.

"Ten minutes?" Eko asked, although it was more to himself than to Jack. "If this is true, than she is definitely somewhere close. How far did your group get after passing this point before you turned back?"

Jack thought about this for a minute before answering. "A few hours. Locke stopped us a couple miles past here, but we didn't find anything. A couple hours after that, Sayid suggested we stop, go back, and try again later."

"You went too far. You were closer here than you were when you stopped." Eko gave him a knowing smile, one that Jack was too stunned to return. His insides were tugging at his brain and all of a sudden he had an unexplainable urge to leave the African man and find Kate on his own.

"Follow me. I think I can get us close if not there," Eko announced, stood up and headed right into a part of the jungle that looked much more menacing than it had just minutes before.

Jack wouldn't give up this time. Even if he had to venture all the way to Hell and back, he would find her and bring her back. So, with Eko leading the way, they went on.

The door to her cell opened, and a young girl no older than sixteen entered, carrying a plate of meat and some fruit and a small cup of water. She handed it to Kate, as well as a small piece of paper.

"What is this…"

But the girl shook her head, pointing to the paper. "Read carefully, then rip it up. They cannot know I gave you that," she whispered fearfully before leaving.

Finding this odd, Kate pushed the food aside, and opened the paper slowly.

Ten minutes. Go to the door. Listen.

Frowning, Kate read this several times before doing as the girl said and ripping it up, stuffing the remnants into her jeans pocket. She drank her water then discarded the food, trying to judge when ten minutes would pass.

She didn't have to wait for long. A voice carried through the walls and into her ears, but it wasn't clear enough to distinguish from where Kate was sitting.

She stood up from her chair, then walked over to the door, pressing her ear to it, trying to listen to what the voice was saying. What she heard made her heart stop.

"Two men have triggered the alarm. They are two of her survivors. What do you want me to do?"

To her horror, Tom answered in a cold and calculating voice. "Take care of them."

A/N: Yay, my first real cliffhanger! What do you think?