"So, Freckles, how will we entertain ourselves for these next four hours?"

Sawyer was comfortably sitting on the couch, legs outstretched onto the small divan. He crossed his arms behind his head, and leered up at her. Kate sighed, and settled herself on a chair opposite him.

"I don't know, Sawyer," she responded conversationally. "Got any ideas?"

"Hell, Freckles," his grin widened even more, if that was possible. "I got a lot of ideas."

Kate rolled her eyes, but couldn't quite keep the smile off her face. Somehow he always managed to put her in a better mood, even by being annoying.

"No sex," she said firmly.

"At least not until after dinner," he said smoothly. That even managed to evoke a laugh out of her. She stood up, pulling her hair back into a ponytail, and wandered over to the bookshelves.

"Let's play a game," she said, abruptly. Sawyer twisted on the couch to look at her. She could feel his eyes on her back, as she ran a finger along the rows of board games. Scrabble, chess, Clue. . .the question was, what kind of a game do a fugitive and a conman enjoy together?

"A game, Sugar?" Sawyer raised an eyebrow, and looked at her disbelievingly. "You've got me all alone in here, and you wanna play a board game?"

"Monopoly!" she finally decided, pulling the game down from the shelf and bringing it over to him. He looked at the game in confusion. She set it down. He continued to look at it strangely.

"Don't tell me that you've never played Monopoly before!" Kate opened the box, and began setting up the bank and the community cards. Sawyer, looking incredibly curious, reached out and grabbed the battleship. Taking it into his hands, he turned it over.

"What the hell do you do with this?" he asked.

"It's a game piece!" Kate exclaimed. She took it out of his hand, and placed it on the board. "Though I would have figured you for more of a cannon man, myself. Anyway, you start here on go. . ."

Four hours later the beeping began to go off, just as normal. Unlike normal, however, Kate was sitting very close to Sawyer, giggling and holding Park Place just out of reach.

"Aw, c'mon Freckles, I'll trade you for it!" he pleaded, fanning Oriental and Connecticut Avenues in front of her face. "You'll have a monopoly! Every time I head toward jail you'll catch me!"

Kate paused a moment, and turned toward the computer. "It's beeping," she sighed. "You wanna punch in the numbers or you want me to?"

Sawyer stared at her, the smile slowly leaving his face. "Here's the deal, Freckles," he said slowly. "You go and push that button, you leave your property here. And I take it. I leave, and you take it. It's a lose-lose situation."

"Um. . .right. . ." Kate smiled. "Or whoever pushes the button takes the property with."

"Or. . ." Sawyer put down his cards, and moved his face in even closer to hers. "Neither of us pushes the damn button."

Kate tried desperately to come up with a clever rebuff to that, but his breath was on her face. He smelled good, she realized. Like peppermint. Where on earth had he found peppermint, and why was she paying attention to his breath?

"We should really. . .should. . .really push the button," she said, hating how breathy her voice came out.

"Freckles," Sawyer said.

"Uh-hmm?"

"Shut up."

And then he kissed her. She closed her eyes, giving herself into the kiss. When he finally pulled back, the earth seemed a little more empty. She opened her eyes again, peering into his eyes. Waiting for the response that always came. That, for some reason, didn't come.

"I didn't say sorry," she said.

"Excuse me?"

"I didn't say sorry. . ." she shook her head, trying to clear it. "I always say sorry."

"You didn't say sorry last time we made out," Sawyer pointed out. Kate ignored him, and continued to ramble on.

"When I kissed Tom, I said sorry. When I kissed Jack"

"Wait a minute, you kissed Jack?"

"But this time I didn't say sorry," she met his eyes again. "Sawyer, why didn't I say sorry?" He didn't answer, so that only silence met her question. Silence. Complete silence. Not even the beeping of a button.

"Oh my God!" Kate gasped, leaping to her feet and practically vaulting over the couch as she ran to the computer. "The button, the button! Sawyer, we didn't hit the button!"

"That was kind of the idea," he drawled, so lowly that she realized he didn't mean for her to hear it. That, however, was of secondary importance as she stared at the cards just about the computer, that usually held placards of numbers, but today only held red cards with question marks on them.

Kate turned to Sawyer. He walked over to her, and gently put an arm around her shoulders.

"Aw, you ain't scared, are you, Freckles?"

She shook her head, and, surprising herself as well as him, leaned in to him.

"Terrified."

Theodore fiddled a little more with the machine, finally getting a whirring noise and a bit of light to come out of the front. "We have lift-off!" he crowed, standing up and moving back to the couch.

"Nice job, Ted," O'Keefe congratulated him and slapping him on the back. Theodore flinched a little. O'Keefe, for all his health problems, definitely was not lacking any arm strength.

"Did you start without me?" Jess asked accusatorily, peeping around the door. "Nuh-uh, guys, I don't think so. Turn it off."

"Just get your ass in here," O'Keefe said. Jess shook her head, and left. Theodore dutifully stood up, walked over to the video projector, and hit the 'off' switch, desperately praying that it would start up again when he tried.

"Man, you are so whipped," O'Keefe laughed. Theodore just shrugged. He knew he couldn't say anything. Any word would be interpreted as meaning that he really did like Jess. And it wasn't that he didn't, it was just that. . .he shook his head. Things were easier this way. Better. Really. He sank down on the couch beside his friend.

"What do you think she's doing, anyway?"

O'Keefe shrugged her shoulders. "Girl stuff, I guess. I don't know, it's Jess, she's completely wacko, you know that."

Theodore nodded. "Yeah, you're right."

They sat there for a moment, O'Keefe impatiently, Theodore more or less content. A moment later Jess fairly danced into the room, and seated herself directly between the two. She held a large bowl of buttered popcorn in her lap.

"You're kidding me, right?" O'Keefe said disbelievingly. Theodore reached out and popped a kernel into his mouth. He had to admit, it was pretty good. Light and buttery. "This is a significant scientfic investigation, and you made us wait for popcorn?"

Jess glared at him. "We're sitting in Teddy Bear's basement, on a smelly old couch. You want me to watch this, I get my Orville." She grabbed a handful and stuffed it in her mouth, grinning broadly around it. O'Keefe shook his head in disgust.

"You're ridiculous."

Theodore took this as his cue to turn on the projector once again. He knew by this point when the inevitable argument was beginning, and it was much easier to just head it off. And, sure enough, the minute the projector began whirring, the squabble ended.

"Is that a plane?" Jess asked. O'Keefe nodded his head. On the screen, people were running away, frantically, from the wreckage of what appeared to be a large jet. A woman was screaming, a pregnant woman appeared to be giving birth, and some asshole was smoking a cigarette.

"What's the flight number?" Jess asked again, still sounding insistent.

"What does it matter?" O'Keefe asked. Theodore walked up closer to the screen, squinting a little and trying, by force of will, to make the fuzzy numbers and letters legible.

"Oceanic 818," he said. "Or maybe. . .maybe 815."

Jess gasped. Theodore and O'Keefe both turned to look at her.

"That's the missing flight," she gasped. "We're watching a video of that plane that disappeared."

"But this film is only a year old," Theodore protested, pointing at the date near the bottom of the screen.

"And that happened five years ago," O'Keefe pointed out. Jess turned and glared at both of them, before jumping to her feet and running out.

"Where's she going?" Theodore asked. O'Keefe snorted.

"Who knows. Who cares. Told you she's wacko."

Theodore sighed, and settled himself onto the couch again. Time for another tirade on why nobody should be friends with a girl. Which would inevitably lead to them hooking up again. Which would inevitably lead to another breakup. Which would inevitably lead to two weeks of silence, in which even mentioning the name "Jess" would bring a glare and one punch if he was lucky, two if he wasn't, which would, of course, inevitably lead to another tenuous friendship. He had it down to an art.

Three hours later, all though of dating and girls was very far from the man's mind, however, as he watched a pilot get dragged out of a plane. Blood splattered the windshield.

"That is seriously messed up," O'Keefe muttered. Theodore couldn't help but nod.

"Ha! Proof!" Jess crowed, and practically danced into the room, landing directly in front of the projector. She threw a newspaper into the boys' laps.

Theodore glanced down at it. September, 2001. The biggest headline on the front page read: OCEANIC 815 LOST AT SEA: Could The Bermuda Triangle Be Back?

"I told you it was this flight, I told you!" she sat down on the couch again, this time next to Theodore and as far from O'Keefe as she could manage.

"But what does it mean?" Theodore asked. He could see that there were gathering more and more pieces of the puzzle, but he still didn't understand how they could possibly all fit together.

O'Keefe, however, had latched onto the question. His entire face practically glowed. "It means to strap on our outfits, my friends, we're taking a plane trip!"