Ok, you demanded it, here's the new chapter! Just tell me when to stop, because as this fic is song-based, a song will feature in every chapter, so tell me when to stop when it gets boring and repetitive and whatnot. Then again, I might run out of songs before then hehe.
xxx

Their walk to the hatch as quiet at first, and then for no apparent reason, Kate started to laugh softly. Jack looked at her with a strange curiosity, and she caught his gaze shyly before laughing again. "You're not laughing at my singing are you?" Jack asked, feinging being offended, but it didn't work at all.

"Not at all," Kate said, leaning her head against his shoulder as they walked. "I was just wondering, thats all." She said.

"And what was my beautiful girl wondering?" Jack asked.

Kate smiled at being called his beautiful girl. She couldn't remember a man ever saying something like that to her and meaning it, without being drunk. "What are we going to do for six hours?" She asked.

Jack laughed along with her. "Well, I'm sure we'll think of something." He said, trailing off a little.

"I would have thought that you'd still be too tired from this afternoon." Kate teased.

"What? Me? No, I'm full of life." He said, and Kate giggled at the idea. "Besides, there are other things we could do for six hours should you get bored of me."

"Such as?" Kate intrigued.

"Well, there's board games...cards...the music. I've always wondered what music there was down there."

"You're having quite a musical day, Doctor Shephard." Kate teased. "Two songs in one day...and now there's more?"

"You can talk." He reminded. "At least I didn't make you sing infront of the whole camp!"

"That wasn't my idea." She defended.

"No, but you encouraged it." He told her. "You know I can't say no to you."

"You can't?" She said playfully. "Hmm...I'll have to bear that in mind."

"Within reason." He added to the end of his previous sentance, and she pretended to be out of luck and snapped her fingers with a well placed "damn!".

Kate smiled again. "I don't like singing on my own." She explained, going back to the previous conversation. "Well, at least, not infront of other people."

"How come?" Jack asked. "You've got a great voice."

"Stage fright." She said, slightly ashamed.

"What?" Jack said with a laugh. "You, of all people, get stage fright?"

She hit him lightly on the arm, and nodded. "Yeah, I get stage fright." She admitted again. "With good reason."

"What's that?" He enquired.

"I'll leave that story for another day." She said. "It's too embarrassing for me to tell when I'm sober."

Jack copied her phrase from a few moments ago. "Hmm...I'll have to bear that in mind."

They both laughed and continued their walk to the hatch. It was getting colder in the night air, even though they were deep in the jungle, and Kate shuddered against him just as they reached the hatch. Jack shut the door behind them, and for once, realised that it was just as cold inside as it was outside, only the first thing Kate did, was brush against the wall, which was like sitting on a ceramic toilet seat in the middle of winter.

"Holy crap!" She exclaimed, backing away from the wall and into Jack's chest.

"Cold?" He asked, wrapping his arms around her from behind and nuzzling against her neck. She could feel his breath warm against her chilled skin.

"Extremely." She said through an exhale.

Jack's lips reached a sensitive patch of skin between her shoulder and her neck, and she let out a small moan. She turned around to face him and their lips met hungrily, a clash of tongues both fighting for domination.

And then the alarm sounded.

Groaning with frustration, they both pulled away, and went into the room where the button needed to be pressed. Jack entered the numbers, systematically on memory now, and pressed 'execute'. They both knew that he hated doing it still, but he did it anyway. He leaned back on the chair with a heavy sigh, and she knew that he had, again, considered not pressing it. It was just that little voice in the back of his head that told him to, and he always listened to it at the last minute. Kate knew that one day he might not, and she was a little scared of what that might mean for them, and for everyone else. Anything, or nothing could happen.

Walking behind him, she put her hands on his shoulders and gently rubbed them. "You're worried." She declared, and he could hear the worry spreading to her own voice.

He let himself smile at her compassion. "One day, I won't be so lucky." He voiced his thoughts aloud, unashamed to bear them to Kate.

"What do you mean?" She asked, letting her fingers rub comforting circles in his shoulders and the base of his neck.

"It's only a matter of time before I fail again." He explained. "My father was right, I don't have what it takes when I fail." His voice took an empty tone, and the playful Jack from a few minutes ago had disappeared. That's why she had learned to hate pressing the button as well, because it seemed to suck the very soul out of Jack.

"That's not true, Jack." She assured him.

"What if it's you next time?" He asked, as her arms wrapped around his shoulders and her cheek rested atop his head. "What if it's you I fail next?"

"Jack, nothing you do will ever make me feel failed by you." She promised, kissing his short stubbly hair. His hands covered her own on her elbows.

"It's a dangerous place here." He reminded her. "Everytime I hear someone shouting my name, I'm scared that something's happened to you." He was finally pouring his heart out to her about his secret fear, and, again, she wasn't running. "Everyday I wake up and have to convince myself that today's not going to be the day that you get hurt." He admitted.

Kate was silent for a while, but then turned the chair around so that she was facing him. She lifted his bowed head to meet her eyes, and kissed him. "Jack," She began softly. "If anything happened to me here, I'd trust you to make it all better. I don't have much faith left, but you've given it back to me, so I have faith in you."

Jack accepted her kiss, and held her tightly. Then she pulled away, going over to the other side of the room where there were shelves and shelves of records and CD's.

"What are you doing?" Jack asked, and Kate only smiled back at him with the irressistable smile.

"You said you wanted to look at the music down here." She reminded him. "What shall we listen to."

Jack laughed at how easily she could bring him out of a depressed mood. "I don't mind. You pick something." He told her.

"Anything?" She asked daringly.

"As long as it's not some sort of rap then that's fine." He said, and Kate laughed.

"Not a gangster man?" She teased.

"I'm a doctor, not a hitman." He laughed.

Kate was silent as she looked through all the albums. A few she took from the shelf, and read through the track listings, before replacing them on the shelf. Then she very nearly squealed with excitement when she found one.

"Kate, what the hell was that sound?" Jack asked, looking over his shoulder at her.

She simply grinned at him. "I haven't heard this album since I was about 12." She told him. "It's my favourite."

"I thought 'Your Song' was your favourite?" He checked.

"My favourite song. This is my favourite album." She said, holding up the case to 'Keep The Faith' by Bon Jovi.

"Never figured you for a Bon Jovi fan." He said, looking at her with a strange fascination. "Then again, I never figured you for an Elton John fan either."

She hit play, and went back over to Jack, who pulled her into his lap and kissed her again. "What shall we do now?" He asked.

"Let's play a game." She suggested.

"What kind of game?"

Kate tried to think of something fun, but there was limited resources and limited games. Then she had an idea, and jumped off his lap, leaving the room.

"Where are you going?" He asked, but he didn't get an answer. Sighing and shaking his head, he stared back at the timer. 100:58. They still had loads of time to kill. He let the lyrics to the first track on the CD surround him, and realised the significant meaning to them. It was playing on random, as he knew the CD from the one he had playing in his car back home, and even though Keep the Faith should have played after I Believe, the song Little Bit Of Soul came on instead, and he began to sing along with the lyrics once he realised what song it was.

"Feeling down, misunderstood
You know these times
They aint looking so good
When you're mad at the world and
You feel like you're losing control
What we all need to get by is
A little bit of soul."

A few minutes later, Kate reappared with her hands behind her back, and he stopped singing. "Pick a hand." She said, and he chose the right, which revealed a minature bottle of Vodka, just like those from the plane.

"Where-"

"I have my ways." She answered before he had even finished the question. "Come on, we're gonna play." She said, bringing Jack over to the couch-like chairs over to the side of the room. She sat cross legged opposite him and he followed suit.

"What are we playing?" He asked her.

"I never." She said sweetly.

"Oh god." Jack said dreadfully.

"You've played before?" She asked with a laugh.

"Once, in college, and I swore never again." He said, his cheeks turning bright red at the memory. Sawyer had been right, Kate realised, it was a college game.

"But, Jack..." She said sweetly. "You know you can't resist me..." She said, sucking up to him, and slowly he nodded.

"Alright, on your own head be it." He warned. "But you can go first."

It was the same she had used against Sawyer, but she was curious and had to know. "I never...wore pink." She said, almost expecting him to drink, but he didn't. Then he looked at her incredulously, and down at her top when she didn't drink. "It's not pink, it's purple."

"That's not purple, it's pink." He protested.

"Actually, the colour on the tag said Cranberry when I brought it." She pointed out.

"Fine." He surrendered, and looked sceptively at her for a moment. "I never...ate so much that I threw up."

Kate grinned and drank straight away. When Jack didn't, she laughed. "Come on, thats the best part about being a kid." She told him.

"I always got caught before." He told her, and she laughed devilishly.

"Yeah, I always got caught afterwards." They both laughed. "I never...watched Alias." She said, remembering overhearing a conversation on the beach between Jack and another survivor, who had seen every episode and apparently knew everything about the show.

Jack drank grudgingly. "A few times. I never, like set time aside for it or anything." He assured her.

"Whatever you say, Jack." She said, not believing him for a second.

"I never...jumped off a roof." He tried, and again, Kate drank. "I knew it. Action girl."

"I never...liked horror movies." She admitted, and Jack didn't drink either.

"Really?" He asked.

She shook her head. "Creeped me out too much."

"I never thought that french fries dipped in ice cream was gross."

Again, neither of them drank. "Finally!" Jack cried. "Someone else who likes it."

Kate stopped laughing, and listened intently to the song that had started playing, smiled, and Jack saw the expression on her face. He stood up and extended his hand.

"Dance with me." He said.

Kate smiled sheepishly. "I don't dance." She said.

"With me you do." He said, taking her hand and pulling her from the couch, abandoning their bottles of Vodka and leaning her into the centre of the room.

He took one of her hands, and rested the other securely on her waist, while her free hand lay on his shoulder. "I'm warning you, I'm not very good at this." She said, causing Jack to laugh a little.

"Sitting here wasted and wounded, with this old piano.
Trying hard to capture the moment, this morning I don't know.
'Cause a bottle of vodka still lies in my head
And some blonde gave me nightmares,
I think that she's still in my bed.
As I think about movies they won't make of me when I'm dead."

Kate danced with the innocent ease that came from lack of confidence. Even though she insisted that she didn't dance, she did rather well, and Jack enjoyed having the reason to feel her body near to his. However, he didn't like the space of air between them, and moved so that his hands were settled on the small of her back, and instinctively, her arms went to his neck.

"With an iron-clad fist, I wake up to french-kiss the morning,
While a marching band keeps its own beat in my head while we're talking
About all of the things that I long to believe,
About love, the truth, what you mean to me, and the truth is...
Baby you're all that I need."

As the music seemed to quicked a little, Jack pulled Kate closer against him. Her head leaned against his chest as she held herself as close to him as she could get. With the space between them finally closed, Jack breathed her in, content with her in his arms.

"I wanna lay you down in a bed of roses
For tonight I sleep, on a bed of nails
I wanna be just as close as the Holy Ghost is,
Lay you down, on a bed of roses.

I'm so far away, each step that I take's on my way home
A king's ransom in dimes I'd give each night to see through this pay phone.
But I'd run out of time or it's hard to get through
Till the bird on the wire flies me back to you
I'll just close my eyes,
And whisper, 'baby it's probably true'."

Kate realised that, again, Jack was singing along with the words, and she adjusted her arms so that they were holding him more tightly. How could something as simple as words make her feel so loved? But the answer to that was simple. They were Jack's words.

"I wanna lay you down in a bed of roses
For tonight I sleep on a bed of nails
I wanna be just as close as the Holy Ghost is
Lay you down, in a bed of roses.

Well the hotel bars hangover whiskey's gone dry,
The bartender's wig's crooked, she's giving me the eye
I might've said yes, but I laughed so hard I think I died.

Now as you close your eyes, you know I'll be thinking about you
My mistress she calls me, to stand in her spotlight again.
I won't be alone, you that don't mean I'm not lonely.
I've got nothing to prove, it's for you that I'd die to defend.

I wanna lay you down in a bed of roses
For tonight I sleep on a bed of nails
I wanna be just as close as the Holy Ghost is
Lay you down, in a bed of roses."

The song ended, but neither of them let go of the other until Jack placed a kiss onto the bare skin of her shoulder. "Sorry I don't have any roses." He whispered against her skin, making her shudder. She looked up at him, seeing the love in his eyes, and smiled.

"I don't need roses." She said softly. "I've got you."

She kissed him again, and this time, there was no bleering alarm that made them jump apart. Instead, before an opportunity arose for it to end, Jack lifted Kate off her feet, and carried her over to the couch again, their lips never breaking apart, and this time, they carried out thier loving act without tiny branches digging into their backs.