Anon - I'm glad that you're liking it. Hope all the Jangst to come before the love won't turn you away.
Northern Wolf - I'm happy you think it's good! =D
Lostcandy - Glad you like it. I have a nice, ironic line in my head for Jack to later address some of her anger with him.
Famous4it - Ah. Where you heading to? I'm really gonna miss your reviews while you're gone.
Boo2ubam - That's an amazing compliment considering she has like...a billion reviews. o_o Thank you. I had fun writing her dream. I found this beautiful picture of a beach wedding on google. It was the guy and the girl on this beautiful beach and he was kissing her while tipping her back. I was like, "Jate!!!!!!" x] And Jack not remembering does have it's downsides...but he won't be able to remember and end up beating himself up over how bad he hurt her...which is a definite upside. Ah...explaining the baby...I actually figured that out today. -zips lips-
Jess - Our insecurity is one thing I really dislike about us Jaters. Skaters always seem so confident and we...don't. It doesn't say much for our ship. =[ Even if it does end up being Skate, I find confidence in at least knowing it should have been Jate. If it ends up Skate...they screwed up. Hopefully they get their act together by the end of the show, bc IMHO, I think they've already screwed up enough. I've found a lot of the characters completely out of character...and not due to character growth either...just due to wrong decisions made by those who run the show. But uh...enough of my rambling. Glad you're enjoying my fanfic!

"You keep pacing around me like you're going to attack me or something. It's beginning to make me a bit nervous." Claire smiled softly, placing her hands on her large stomach. "Is there something you need? I know I'm pregnant, but there's still a few things I can do."

"I'm sorry." I rubbed the back of my neck then shoved my hands in my pockets. I hadn't realized she had noticed me, but I wasn't exactly being subtle in my attempts to figure out whether or not to go talk to her. "You were going through suitcases yesterday, right?"

"Well, I was pulling out the clothes and organizing them. Most everything is taken now though. What are you looking for?" The Australian woman placed a hand on her back as she struggled to her feet.

I glanced around. "I was wondering if you found any jewelry."

"Jewelry." Claire paused for a moment. "There was a ring or two. Lots and lots of earrings. I think…"

"More specifically necklaces." I shifted from one foot to the other. "Never mind. It's okay. I'm just going to…"

"I remember a pearl necklace and a chain," she stated. "They were all tangled up. I think I tossed them in a suitcase and threw it with the rest of them. You don't really seem like someone who wears necklaces."

"I'm not."

----------

I picked up my engagement ring from off the sand and brushed it off, looking it over carefully for damage. It was still as gorgeous as the day he slid it on my finger. The chain I had untangled didn't do the ring justice. It was dull and twisted in a few places, but fortunately it was still strong. I slid the ring on it then hooked it around my neck and hid it under my shirt.

"Kate, are you coming along with us to get water?"

I poked my head out of my shelter, raising my eyebrows. "You think I'd miss a chance to hike into heart of darkness? Though, I have a question before we leave." I grabbed my backpack from my things and slid it over my shoulders as I walked out into the sun. I frowned slightly realizing he had already packed his own backpack.

"A question?" He replied, raising an eyebrow at me. "About the hike?"

I rolled my eyes. "Not about the hike." I turned so I was facing his side, placing my hands on his arm. "I want to know about these tattoos of yours." I never did find out too much about them.

He let out a sigh that sounded a bit exasperated and glanced down at me. "Kate." It was almost a whiney voice that had me forcing back a smile. "I'm not going to tell you about my tattoos."

"That's okay." How many years after first seeing them, I wasn't too concerned about them anymore. I leaned close to him and smirked. "I like my doctors hardcore and mysterious." The look on his face was mixture of confusion and shock and was all around priceless. I bounded off in the direction of everyone else, ignoring Charlie's slightly disgusted glances.

Jack approached us slowly, his cheeks a slight shade of red. He cleared his throat and adjusted his backpack. "Okay, let's do this."

I tried not to get ahead of the group as we walked. I found myself walking right behind Jack, occasionally accidentally stepping on his heels. As we got close to the caves, I glanced over at Charlie. "Charlie! Watch where you step!"

The poor rock star must have jumped five feet in the air before scrambling back a few inches. "Bloody hell! What is it?!" He stared at the ground, unmoving. Everyone had turned to face him.

"Oh. I thought I saw something." I pretended to look embarrassed. "Sorry. Let's keep going." I watched him as we continued walking. He had his eyes glued to the ground as if one misstep would send him spiraling into some deep dark abyss. That should have been enough to keep him from stomping on any randomly placed beehives. As much as I loved Jack without clothes, I preferred if we kept our shirts on on this trip. I glanced up just in time to catch Jack staring at me.

He immediately looked away and cleared his throat once more. "Water's this way."

I nodded my head. "So how exactly did you find this place?"

"Luck," he answered.

"That's what you said the first time," I muttered under my breath.

"Excuse me?" He tilted his head to the side. "I didn't quite hear you."

"I froze. I uh…Well, I guess you found it just in time." I smiled at Jack and wandered into one of the caves as he gave instructions to Charlie and Locke. I pursed my lips together as I stared inside, almost overwhelmed by emotion. I quickly rubbed at my eyes before any tears could form and stepped forward a few feet, gazing over where we had died. I didn't see our bodies. I was convincing myself it had all been just some twisted nightmare until I turned to the side and found Jack's skeleton staring right at me. Where there had once been two skeletons, now there was only one. I gasped loudly and stumbled backward, smacking right into Jack's chest. He wrapped his arms around me to steady me.

"Are you alright?" He took a step back, but let his hands linger on my arms for a good five seconds or so. His gazed was fixed on the skeleton when I glanced up at him.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good." I ran a hand through my hair, pacing back and forth as he began to ramble off his thoughts about his dead self. He began to search his own clothes and I began to feel sick, my hands beginning to get shaky. I glanced over at him against, bracing myself against the side of the cave, feeling like I was hiding. "What are you doing?"

"I found something." He pulled a pouch out of his skeleton's pocket, examining the outside of it. I vaguely remembered him finding it before, but I had no recollection of what he ever did with it. Apparently, he had kept it. He opened it and emptied the two stones out onto his hand.

I took a few steps forward and reached my hands out. "Can I look at them?"

"Yeah." Jack turned to place me, placing the white stone in my right hand then the black stone in my left.

I closed my hand around the white stone, but the black stone began to give my hand an odd tingling sensation. "Ow." I finally cursed and chucked the black stone at his feet, stumbling back a step. I closed my hand, clutching it to my chest. "It was really hot!" I defended myself when I noticed his questioning look.

"It's a rock, Kate." He knelt down and picked up the stone, slipping it in his pocket. "Give me your hand. I'll show you it wasn't hot." He gently took my and uncurled my fingers. I almost shared in his shock as we stared at the bright red mark that covered my skin in the place he had laid the stone.

"Hello? Anybody in there?" Locke stepped in just as I was pulling my hand away from Jack's. "Everything alright."

"Aside from a dead guy." Jack motioned toward the skeleton.

I took a few steps back again, slipping the white stone into my pocket.

"Our very own Adam." Locke walked over to the skeleton to examine it. "Guess Eve was a little bit more lucky than this guy."

I found myself hiding beside the cave wall again. Locke began to offer to stay behind to salvage the wreckage with Charlie while Jack began to suggest what a great place the caves would be to live in. I tuned them out, reaching my hand up to my neck to feel the ring before shoving my hand in my pocket to feel the stone.

When Jack began to fill water bottles, I found myself wandering over to Locke. "Can I ask you a question?"

"You just did." He looked serious for a moment then chuckled. "Go ahead. What is it?"

"You and the island seem to have…I don't know." I shrugged. "You seem to have some sort of connection with the island."

He smiled. "From what I've seen, so do you. That wasn't a question."

"Yeah. I know." I pulled my hand from my pocket and rubbed it up and down my arm. "What significance would pulling a black stone and a white stone out of a pouch have?"

"What does that have to do with my connection to the island?" He looked confused.

I sighed. "Never mind. It was a dumb question." I turned to leave.

"Well, when I think about it…" He stopped me. "You have a black stone and a white stone in a pouch that you can't see through. So if you pick out one, you don't know which one your going to pick. Pick out the dark stone, and you sacrifice yourself for something. Pick out the white one and you're free to go while the other person is stuck with the black one."

I hesitated. "So the person with the white one…just doesn't sacrifice himself?"

"Precisely." Locke nodded. "Unless they choose to." He smiled. "But that would be foolish."

I slipped my hand back into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around the stone again, nodding my head. "Right." I glanced at Jack as he finished filling the last of the bottles with water. "I should get going." I slid my backpack from my shoulder and made sure it was filled with full water bottles before I followed Jack back into the jungle.

The first half of the walk was filled with a comfortable silence. Jack finally turned to face me. "So what were you talking to Locke about?"

"Nothing." I looked up at him, watching as his gazed lingered on my face then on a few other parts of my body. I smirked. "You checking me out?"

He looked almost startled then returned my smirk. "What?"

"No harm in it." I grinned at him, but felt a bit self-conscious.

"Trust me," Jack replied. "If I was checking you out…"

"I'd know it," I cut him off. I nodded my head, my grin not fading. "I know that you were checking me out." I didn't wait for him to try and deny it before I changed the subject. "Still thinking about moving to the caves?" I knew he was.

"You think it's a bad idea?" He looked like he was trying to get me to agree with him that his idea was okay.

"No, no, it makes sense," I assured him. "I think it's a great idea."

"But?" He motioned with his hand for me to go on.

"But I don't think I'll be joining you." I forced a smile then faced ahead, walking a few paces in front of him. As soon as we passed Sayid in the jungle, Jack stopped to talk to him and I kept walking. I sat down a few feet from the ocean, using the next hour or two to weigh my options when it came to staying at the beach or moving to the caves. At least that's what I convinced myself I was doing. In reality, I was allowing my thoughts to drift back to Aaron again. I found myself thinking about the pregnancy test lying in my tent and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself wandering in that direction.

It took a good ten minutes for me to decide whether or not to pick it up. I left my shelter, closely examining the box and trying to figure out how accurate it was.

"So what'd'you think about this whole moving to the caves, Freckles?"

I hid the test behind my back, clutching it so tightly I could feel dents forming in the cardboard box. "I think it's a good idea. You staying on the beach?"

"And miss partying in cave town with all the cavemen?" Sawyer asked sarcastically. "Hell, yeah, I'm staying at the beach. I'm keeping my eye out for the damn rescue boat."

"Right." I nodded my head. "I think I'm going to mo-…"

"So 'bout that favor you owe me. I know what I want."

I paused, narrowing my eyes at him. "And what would that be?"

"Good luck living here on the beach, Freckles." He walked off.

I stared at him in shock. The pregnancy text box was now officially destroyed by my angry grip. I walked off into the jungle.

Peeing on a stick in the jungle was nowhere near as easy as doing it in the bathroom. That and the following three minutes were the longest moments of my entire life. I sat on the beach, just staring in silence at the test in my hand. When Jack approached, I dropped it on the ground and stomped on it with my foot to hide it in the sand.

"Hey," he said softly, stopping beside me. "It's almost time to go."

The dread from the test had almost drowned out the dread of my answer. "I don't want to be Eve." The white stone felt like it was burning a hole in my pocket. Fortunately, unlike the black stone would have, I knew it wasn't.

"No one's asking you to." His hand landed gently on my shoulder.

I shrugged it away, knowing I was probably confusing the hell out of him with my mixed signals. All the while, I was reminding myself to punch Sawyer in his pretty face. I kept my mouth shut, narrowing my eyes as I stared out at the ocean.

"If you need me, you know where to find me."

I listened as his footsteps got further and further away. "You know where to find me too," I mumbled under my breath. I pulled the test out from underneath my foot and took one last glance at the little pink plus that confirmed my greatest fear. Crying out, I threw it as hard as I could into the ocean then leaned forward and buried my face in my hands.