Chapter Three

Author's note: Sorry if this seems rushed, or badly paced. I'm just trying to adapt the early episodes so I can get to the more interesting stuff. But this is longer than my other chapters, so hope you like that. Thanks for the response. And hey, I've now introduced almost all of the castaways!
Haley looked curiously between two men, the blonde one in front of her and the dark one behind her. The dark one caught her looking at him and raised his eyebrows suggestively.

"What's your name?" she asked him.

"Nathan. What's yours, sugar?" he asked.

"Haley." She glanced up at Lucas, who was staring curiously. "Not sugar."

Lucas looked between the two and realized he'd spent over two hours with Haley before learning her name.

The three of them reached a wide open grassy field.

"Where you from?" asked Haley, realizing awkwardly that she didn't yet know his name.

"California," said Lucas.

"I'm from all over. You a Southern man, Nathan?" she offered, desperate to fill in the silence. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. Her voice altered sligthly, her childhood accent somehow inserting itself in the syllables she spoke.

"You too, apparently."

Haley frowned. Her voice had never done that to her since she'd dropped her characteristic Southern twang, years previously. She didn't know how it had happened.

"I was born in Georgia," she said, with some embarassment.

"Tennesse."

Lucas frowned. He knew very little about this dark haired man from Tenesse, but he didn't exactly trust him yet. It was his bad boy aura, or that he was already going after his girl. Or at least his potential girl. Sighing, he picked up his pace, pulling himself farther away from Haley, Nathan and the connection he didn't care to see.

"Come on. Some people are trying to reheat the airplane food over the fire over there. I think we should join them Dan," said Karen, after she'd watched her husband sit on the beach and stare at the water for a full day.

"No."

"What?"

"We don't need them. We can't trust them, any of them. The brooding Doctor, or the Cowboy, or the tortured blonde who already has both of them after her. We can depend on each other," he said firmly.

"Dan, we're on an island with thirty other people. We can't just pretend they don't exist. We're going to need their help," she said in exasperation.

"They're strangers, Karen."

Karen stared resentfully at him as he turned away from her and back to the sea, but she didn't make a move toward the others.

As the three approached the head end of the plane, sticking out of the ground at a forty-five degree angle, glass shards and bent trees surrounding it, it began to pour.

Haley ran for the cover of the plane, but shuddered in disgust when she did enter it.

Bodies. Dozens of them. Occupying every chair of the plane, bodies with their hands clutching their armrests, or their partners, or themselves. Expressions of terror alive in their faces, air masks hanging fruitlessly in front of them.

"You okay?" asked Lucas in concern. He touched her arm in comfort, and she flinched.

"Yeah. I'm fine. Let's get to the cockpit."

The three of them climbed slowly upward. Haley slowly gained her composure, Lucas put on a facade of strength, Nathan's never wavered.

Haley shrieked in alarm as Nathan yanked open the cockpit door and the bloody body of the copilot flew out. Nathan shoved it off of him and walked in, followed closely by the other two.

Lucas looked around solemnly. The body, sprawled in the pilot seat, was obviously dead, his eyelids open, eye blankling staring up at the sky. Rain poured in through the broken glass window, branches filled the gaps and made them feel as if they were as much outside as they were in.

"Are you going to check him?" asked Nathan eventually.

"He's..."

He wasn't. Lucas jumped as he coughed suddenly and revived himself. Lucas poured water from a bottle down his throat, and waited impatiently until he could speak.

"We were off course. Plane... crashed. Don't know what happened."

"The tranceiver?" demanded Lucas.

"It's over there. Unless you can find signal... Won't help. Thousands of miles."

The plane moved slightly, and began to rock.

"HALEY!" called Lucas commandingly. Haley moved against him and accepted the protective arms he put around her to keep her in place as the plane settled straight.

"What the hell was that, Doc?" demanded Nathan, as soon as they'd run out.

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know? You speak the language, you heard him talk, and you don't know?"

"I-"

Haley shushed them both as they heard a rustling in the low grass. Looking pained, Lucas latched his hand around Haley's wrist and pulled her away while Nathan stood still and stared in the direction of the noise.

"Nathan!" called Haley in irritation as she ran away.

They both heard the gunshot before they saw the gun.

"Where the hell did you get that?" demanded Haley.

Both of them looke down to the animal on the ground.

"You're not sounding overly grateful, Wildcat," said Nathan.

"Sorry, guess I forgot my manners in Autralia. Where'd you get it, Nathan?" she demanded.

"The plane. There was an air marshall. Took his gun, didn't think he'd need it," said Nathan in annoyance. Lucas moved toward them, but they both ignored him.

"Give me the gun."

She took a cautious step toward him, and held out her hand. He moved as if to give her the gun, but grabbed her wrist and pulled her in to him.

She shivered slightly as he jerked her body into his until they almost touched. He whispered, and his lips grazed her ear as he spoke.

"I know your type. I've been with girls like you."

With difficulty, she pulled back and met his cold blue eyes.

"No girl's exactly like me," she said. She snatched the gun out of his hand and pulled away from his strong grip, ignoring Lucas' stare.

She ejected the magazine and tossed it to Lucas before giving the rest back to Nathan.

"We should take it back. We might need to eat sometime," said Nathan, glancing down at the slaughtered boar on the jungle floor. Haley walked off, and after a moment Lucas followed her.

For the first time, Nathan smiled his wide, cocky grin. He was going to have fun with this.

"LUCAS!"

Lucas looked up as they arrived back at the camp and the boy, who was called Mouth, called out to him immediately. Mouth had minor medical training, and a sister called Rachel. Lucas tried to keep these facts straight as Mouth ran toward him.

"Yeah?"

"The guy with the shrapnel in his chest. He woke up, you should check it out," said Mouth anxiously. Jack nodded and ran over to him.

The Air Marshall with the hunk of metal in his chest looked deathly, and his skin had a gray tinge. Lucas felt his pulse.

For an insant, he stirred and his eyes opened suddenly. He had pale, untrusting eyes.

"She's dangerous," he said desperately, before sinking back into oblivion.