This may be the longest chapter I've ever written. 8 pages without an Author's Note. Whew!

"Well what the hell was that?"

"I have no idea, Sawyer. She was pretty tough, and she has to be weak after whatever happened to her. I wouldn't want to fight her when she's healthy. Seems like she might even be as tough as Kate."

"Hmm. Where is Freckles anyway?" Sawyer inquired.

"She's coming with the alcohol. I was running low, so she volunteered to grab some from your stash," Jack kept a straight face while he said this, but his eyes were gleaming with laughter.

"Damn it Doc, you coulda just asked me, it's not like I want the girl goin' through my stuff!"

"Yeah, well there's not much there anyway, Sawyer. Although I was surprised at that magazine under your blanket, though I suppose I shouldn't have been. Was that yours to begin with? I can't imagine anyone else bringing that on the plane," Kate smirked.

She was standing in the doorway holding two bottles of alcohol and grinning at Sawyer.

"Man's gotta keep himself entertained on an island as boring as this, sweetheart."

"Boring. Right," Kate snorted. As she walked closer to the two men, she noticed the bruise forming on Sawyer's jaw. "What happened to you?"

"Little firecracker over there decided to jump me for no good reason."

"The unconscious woman I found on the beach with her arms cut all over beat you up?" Kate asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Shut up."

"Okay, I have to dress her wounds and check to see if she suffered any other injuries during whatever happened to her. Sawyer, come in with me in case I need you to hold her down."

"What if she's an Other? You're just going to nurse her back to health after she attacked one of us? She could turn around and kill one of us at any second, Jack," Kate argued.

"I know, Kate. I don't trust her any more than you do. But the point is, she could be anyone, and if she bleeds to death, we won't figure anything out."

With that, Jack turned and left Kate glaring at his retreating back. Sawyer smirked and followed the doctor into the other room. When they arrived at the cell door, Sawyer put a hand on Jack's shoulder.

"Hey, Jack, what's your name? I mean, obviously it's Jack, but your full name, I mean."

Jack frowned at Sawyer's odd question, but answered it anyway.

"John Ryan Shepherd. Why?"

"Well when I yelled out your name, the girl freaked out, but she said Jack and then Jackson. So it looks like you're not the guy she's all worked up about. That had to be one hell of a breakup."

"Well whatever it was, we're not getting any information out here, are we?"

Jack unlocked the door and stepped inside. The woman was in the corner of the room, sitting on the cot with her legs up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her knees. She stared at the two men blankly as the walked inside the small room and pushed herself against the wall as they came closer. Sawyer hung back behind the doctor, in no mood to be assaulted again by the slender woman, listening to Jack try to get her to let him look at her arms.

"Look, I'm not going to hurt you, alright? I promise. I just need to clean your cuts so they won't get infected. You need to give me your arms, okay?"

Sawyer smirked as the woman shook her head and Jack's face began to show faint signs of annoyance.

"Where's Jackson? I know he's here," she whispered.

"We don't know who Jackson is. He's not here, and you really need to let me help you. We can look for Jackson later, if you want. But right now I need you to cooperate. Can you at least tell me your name?"

"Lisa," The woman replied, so quietly that Jack almost missed it.

"Okay, Lisa, this is Sawyer, and I'm Jack. I'm a doctor, and I'd really appreciate it if you helped me out here, okay?"

Although Lisa tensed immediately at the sound of Jack's name, she slowly held out her shaking arms to Jack. He spent the next few minutes inspecting them, cleaning them and bandaging them up. Lisa gasped in pain as Jack applied the alcohol, but she didn't pull her arm away; Jack could imagine how much her wounds hurt after being exposed to the salt in the ocean and then the alcohol, so he tried his best to be gentle with her. After he was done, she immediately moved back to the corner of the bed. Jack decided to try and figure out who she was and how she got on the island. He asked Sawyer to leave the room and close the door behind him; he knew that Sawyer and Kate would be just outside the door, waiting for the slightest sign of trouble. As soon as Sawyer left, Jack looked to see if the door was fully closed and then moved back towards the cot, but stayed standing in front of Lisa. Lisa pushed herself into the corner as far as she could possibly get, and was staring as though she were looking right through him.

"What are you going to do to me?" She asked, her eyes dull, but laced with hardly contained fear.

Jack sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her in the eyes.

"We won't do anything to you if you cooperate, Lisa."

"Wh-what do you need me to do?"

"Well, first I wouldn't mind taking a look at you to make sure you're alright. With your arms in that condition, I can only imagine how the rest of you is holding up. I just need to check for broken bones and other things."

"Why would you care about my health, if you only need me to help you with the job?"

"Okay Lisa, I need you to listen. We won't hurt you unless you give us a reason to. One of us found you washed up on the beach in pretty bad shape. She brought you to me so I could help you heal, and find out who you were. I don't know who you think we are, but we don't know who you are, so we can't be them, can we?"

"So, you don't know who Jackson is?"

"No, I don't."

"Okay," she said carefully, as though she wasn't sure if she could believe him.

"Now could I please make sure you aren't hurt anywhere else?"

Lisa nodded in response, still processing what Jack had said to her.

"Lisa, I need you to take off your shirt and pants. You can leave your bra and underwear on, but I have to check your legs and torso for injuries."

"No, you don't have to do that. I feel fine, really. I'm okay," she said quickly, shaking her head.

"Lisa, you need to cooperate. I promise I'll stop the minute you tell me to, okay?"

Lisa stared at Jack for a few more seconds, and then obliged, pulling the shirt over her head and then undoing the button on her pants and pulling her legs through. Jack's eyes widened slightly when he saw her bruised stomach and the scar on her chest. It was obvious that the scar was not recent, and looked about a year or two old. The bruises, however, were brand new, a brilliant mixture of blues and purples, and stretched across her entire stomach. Jack realized that the bruises couldn't have been from the ocean, and were arraigned in a way that screamed "abuse."

Lisa stiffened even more when she saw Jack's gaze travel over her body. She knew it was only because he was taking in the damage that Jackson had inflicted upon her, but she felt too exposed in front of Jack. She instinctively crossed her arms over her chest to shield herself from his gaze and glared at him. Jack looked into her eyes for permission and placed his hands on her stomach. When she flinched, he pulled back, but he forced himself to check for broken bones after a minute. When he was finished with the rest of his examination, he thought for a minute and let Lisa in on his conclusions.

"Well it looks like you have a few bruised ribs, but nothing is broken, and you don't need stitches anywhere because the cuts along your arms aren't deep or wide enough. We'll have to routinely change the bandages of course, but they should heal easily enough. You can put your clothes back on now."

As Lisa pulled her shirt back on, Jack sat down on the cot and looked in front of him to give Lisa some semblance of privacy, regardless of the fact that he had just seen her without her shirt and pants on. When she was finished changing, he looked back at her.

"Lisa, can you tell me how you got here?"

Lisa took a deep breath as if she was steeling herself for a horrible explanation, but simply stated, "I was in a plane crash."

"How many other people were on the plane?"

"Um, two. The pilot and one other passenger. It was a private jet."

"What did they look like?"

"Well, I didn't see the pilot, so I wouldn't even be able to point him out in a lineup," Lisa responded. Jack found that example a little odd, but he let it slide and waited for Lisa to continue. "But the other passenger was a man. He's almost 6 feet, um, slender. He's got kind of wavy brown hair and the bluest eyes you could ever imagine." Lisa rushed out the last sentence in one breath, and it took Jack a few seconds to figure out what she said.

"Okay," he said slowly, "Do you think they survived?"

"Well, the plane hit the water pretty much straight on, and I don't know how close we were to land, so the pilot is probably dead. But the other man was in a seat buckled in, so he could have survived. He's survived worse, that's for damn sure," Lisa spat bitterly.

"Was the other man Jackson?"

Lisa looked up at Jack sharply, her eyes pinning him to the spot.

"What?"

"Sawyer said that you started fighting him when he said my name. You couldn't have gotten those marks on your stomach from the crash, and the cuts on your arms are obviously man-made. Did Jackson do that to you?"

"No," Lisa said quickly. The instant the lie came out of her mouth, she was thrown into a memory.

"Did someone do that to you?" Jackson demanded, looking at the scar on Lisa's chest.

"No."

"Is that what it is?"

"N-no," she lied.

Lisa was ripped from the wall of the tiny airplane bathroom only to be slammed into the sink counter, the edge of it digging into her lower back. Jackson repositioned her against the wall next to the sink and brought his hands to her throat, squeezing the air out of her lungs viciously.

"You know what I think, Leese? I think you're not such an honest person."

Lisa snapped out of her reverie as she realized Jack was watching her closely. She didn't know why she lied to him about Jackson. If he were part of the company, she would have known by now, so why couldn't she tell him the truth? Her subconscious answered her immediately. Just look at your track record with men, do you honestly think this one is going to be any different? So Lisa didn't correct herself and developed a sudden interest in her hands.

"Alright, where did you take off from?"

"Miami, I think."

"You think?"

"We took off from Florida," Lisa said, visibly annoyed. She wasn't getting into this with a man she met an hour ago.

"Where were you going to land?"

"Why does it matter? I'm stuck here now, so who cares where I was going, or where I came from?" Lisa snapped. She realized that making Jack mad wasn't going to help her get out of the cell she was in, but she was getting really angry at all the questions she couldn't answer. "Why don't you do me a favor and tell me where I am, who the hell you are, and how and when I can get home? Because I really need to go home."

"Those are fair questions, I suppose. From the information we've gathered, we are somewhere in the South Pacific, but I can't get much more specific than that," Jack explained gently, not wanting Lisa to get any more agitated than she already was.

"Can't or won't?"

"I said can't, didn't I? I was on a flight from Australia to LA when we crashed on this island. There are about forty survivors from the crash; Sawyer and I are among them, obviously. We've been here for a few months, and we can't get contact with anyone outside of the island."

Jack watched as different emotions flashed across Lisa's face. Confusion, shock, anger, sadness, and fear were the most prevalent.

"So, I'm stuck here for…" Lisa trailed off, not able to finish her sentence.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think anyone is coming, Lisa."

She stared at him for a full minute before whispering, "Please leave."

Jack looked at Lisa for a moment longer, stood up and walked out, closing the door behind him.

Hmm, informatory chapter much? Don't worry, more action will come soon! Reviews would be great. And I would really appreciate it if you told me what you liked and didn't like. If you want something changed, speak up! If you don't tell me what's wrong, how am I supposed to fix it? And if you don't tell me what you like, I might stop doing it without knowing! So let me in on your opinions! I honestly read every review I get, and I appreciate them very much. I'm not asking you to climb a mountain or mow my (very-hard-to-mow) lawn. All you need to do is click, click, type, click! Thanks. –ends humbleness-