It had been five days since Ellie had washed up on the island. Kate had barely left her side, and Jack had left the hatch only twice. People kept dropping by, hoping to get an answer to one of the many hundreds of questions that were rife throughout their camp. But so far, no-one knew more than they had five days ago, when Hurley and Charlie found the scrapbook in Ellie's duffel bag. Kate and Ellie had developed a kind of friendship and over the days Ellie had volunteered harmless, innoculous pieces of information that built a picture of a happy, well-adjusted teenager with a boyfriend and friends who she spent every waking moment with. The only things she never mentioned were her family, and how she came to be on the island.

Jack still couldn't understand why Kate wasn't pushing Ellie to talk. He himself had tried, only to be greeted with tears from Ellie and angry words from Kate. Yesterday he had gotten angry with Ellie when she stared at him blankly and had yelled at her to tell them what had happened. Kate had slapped him around the face before ordering him to leave. He smarted whenever he thought about it. Even though he knew, somewhere deep inside him, that Ellie wasn't on of the others curiosity still burned within him; a desire to know how exactly Ellie, the daughter of two people who had been on the very same flight as him, Kate and the rest of the survivors, had come to wash up on the same island that they had crashed onto. It was beyond coincidence, even for the island.

Ellie had discovered the computer on her first walk round the hatch. Oddly, thought Kate, she hadn't asked what the hatch was, or why it was even there. Ellie had sauntered all round it, carefully avoiding the computer and jumping out of her skin when the alarm sounded. Since then she had gotten used to the sound but she still tried to make sure she was as far away from the computer as possible when it went off. Kate had told Ellie as much as she knew about the computer and the hatch in general, something which made Jack burn with anger, but Ellie's disinterest in her surroundings was obvious. The only thing which really caught her attention was the bookcase, packed with dusty old volumes. She had lingered, with her fingers rested on the crackly old spines and looked questioningly at Kate, and then at Jack. Kate seemed more willing to go along with her, Ellie thought, whereas Jack seemed less trusting. She didn't understand it really, she should have been the one not trusting them, instead she felt totally at home, and completely safe with them.

They all ate together, and had done for the past two days. Jack still felt reluctant to join them, but at Kate's request he was always seated at the table with them. Ellie was mostly silent while Jack and Kate kept up most of the conversation. Today however, it seemed as if Ellie had decided to talk.

"Jack?" she asked, placing her bottle of water on the table. Her eyes were fixed on her lap but she could feel him staring at her. In all her time in the hatch she had never initiated a conversation with him. With Kate, yes, but Jack...she was still slightly fearful of him. Jack looked from Ellie's bowed head towards Kate, who shrugged.

"Yeah?" he answered, his face as much of a question as his words,

"My bag...the one that washed up?" Ellie raised her head slightly but still avoided his eyes. "I had a scrapbook inside it. I mean, my grandfather and I made it...he wanted me to have it. Did you find it?" Finally Ellie looked at Jack, her eyes meeting his. The sheen of her unspilled tears was reflected by the light. Seeing her, looking so vulnerable, Jack understood why Kate found it so easy to trust Ellie; why she was so willing to take care of her even though she had no clue as to who the girl really was. He couldn't say no.

"Yeah, it was in your bag. Just a sec." Jack wiped his hands down his pants and stood up, walking towards the computer. He reached underneath it and pulled out the thick, leatherbound book. He brought it back to the table and placed it in front of the teenager. With shaking hands she reached out and turned it around, so that it was facing her. She opened it slowly and traced her finger around the headlines which had been pasted over the pages of the book. As she turned the pages, tiny tears slid down her face. When she reached the page with the image of her parents, it was as if the floodgates had closed. She stopped crying and faced Jack and Kate, who had been sat watching her.

"My parents - " she said, pointing at the image. " - Eric and Siobhan Monroe. He was a stock broker, and she taught 3rd grade at a specialist school. They got married in College, but didn't have me until they were in their thirties. On the weekends she would read the New York Times and he would read The Wall Street Journal, and then they would swap over. Thursday was Family Night, we'd all make dinner and watch a movie and then just talk. They liked to do crossword puzzles. That's why they were in Australia; they won first prize in a crossword puzzle competition. Two weeks in Sydney with expenses paid. They took their honeymoon in Sydney, figured it was fate - winning the vacation the same year that they celebrated their 25th anniversary. They wanted to take me, but I had exams at school, and besides-" she paused but didn't take her eyes off the two people staring back at her,

"-what kind of couple wants to take their kid on a second honeymoon? I was in school when I found out what had happened. The principal's secretary came and handed a note to my English professor. I had to go to his office and when I got there there was this guy, wearing some fancy suit, and a woman who tried way to hard to get me to like her. I didn't understand what was going on, I thought maybe I had done something wrong. But then this guy starts telling me that they had lost the plane that my parents were on. It had just disappeared about four hours before and they couldn't find it again. I just looked at him, I think he thought that I'd lost it, but I hadn't. Disappeared didn't mean that they wouldn't find it, I asked what they were doing and he said they had search parties and stuff like that. I said that that was good, and then asked if I could go back to class. Now they all looked at me like I was crazy. But I guess they couldn't do anything because the next thing I remember is being back in my English class, freaking out because we were supposed to be analysing some poem by this random lady. It was about flying..." Ellie's voice trailed off as she flipped pages in the book, past the pictures of all those who had been on the flights, further than Jack or Kate had had courage to look. She stopped at a page where a sheet of notepaper had been pasted. It was covered in neat black writing. Ellie span the book around so Kate and Jack could read what she had written.

Flying inside your own body, by Margaret Atwood

Your lungs fill & spread themselves,
wings of pink blood, and your bones
empty themselves and become hollow.
When you breathe in you'll lift like a balloon
and your heart is light too & huge,
beating with pure joy, pure helium.
The sun's white winds blow through you,
there's nothing above you,
you see the earth now as an oval jewel,
radiant & seablue with love.
It's only in dreams you can do this.
Waking, your heart is a shaken fist,
a fine dust clogs the air you breathe in;
the sun's a hot copper weight pressing straight
down on the think pink rind of your skull.
It's always the moment just before gunshot.
You try & try to rise but you cannot.

Underneath the poem Ellie had written: "My grief lies all within, And these external manners of lament Are merely shadows to the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortured soul. William Shakespeare."

Jack and Kate looked up from the page, and stole glances at each other. Ellie's gaze was once again fixed on her lap.

"Ellie..." Jack began, but she cut him off,

"Please don't. Please, you wanted to know who I was and now you do. Can that just be enough for now?" Without waiting for an answer she snapped the book shut, and tucking it underneath her arm, she left the table and walked towards the bunk. She placed the scrapbook tenderly underneath the pillow, then sat on her bed, combing through her hair with her fingers.

"Kate..." Jack said, turning to face her, "I believe her. But it's still not enough."