"Help! Jack! Someone, please someone get Jack!" The male voice came like a knife through the silent darkness of the night. Shouts echoed across the beach, punctuated by the wind and waves crashing around camp. Jack, who had been asleep in his tent, woke when Sun burst in.

"Jack, you have to come. It's Ellie." Hearing those last two words Jack's blood ran cold and he pulled on his jeans with an urgency that he had never felt before; his heart pounding. He started towards Kate's tent but Sun grabbed his arm.

"She's not in there. She's over there." She pointed towards Noah's tent, outside of which a small crowd had gathered. He ran as fast as he could towards them, shoving people out of the way. Ellie was lying motionless on the floor, her face flushed and beaded with sweat. Noah was knelt beside her, his hand grasped tightly around hers and whispering, begging her to wake up.

"What the hell happened?" Jack almost spat at the terrified young man, as he held Ellie's other hand to take her pulse. It was racing, and when her skin felt as if it was on fire.

"I don't know. I woke up, and she wasn't moving."

"Was she ok before?"

"What?" Noah asked, bewildered.

"Today, this afternoon, WAS SHE OK?" Jack yelled at him.

"She was coughing. She said she was fine." Noah stuttered.

"Does she look fine to you?" Jack scooped Ellie into his arms and stood up. As the crowd parted to let him through, Jack remembered the first day Ellie had been on the island. He had held her the same way then, not knowing who the hell she was or whether or not she would be ok. Now he knew who she was, and there was no way on earth he was letting her go. He headed towards the ocean but a screaming voice behind him stopped him in his tracks.

"Jack?" Kate hurtled through the crowd. "Jack, Ellie?" Seeing Ellie lying listless tears fell down her face. "Ellie, Ellie sweetheart it's ok." She took Ellie's hot, limp hand in hers and stroked her fingers. "What are you going to do?" she asked Jack, eyes shining with tears.

"We need to bring the fever down." Jack answered, walking into the black water. He knew it should have been freezing cold, but he couldn't feel anything; he was numb. He waded in deeper, Kate tight to his side until they were waist-deep. Slowly he lowered Ellie into the ocean, feeling her burning-hot body tense as it hit the water. He instructed Kate to tip water over Ellie's head to try and cool her down. As the water hit her forehead Ellie gasped, taking in a huge breath of air. Her eyes snapped open, terrified. Her arms instinctively wrapped around Jack's neck and he held her so tight he thought he might leave a bruise.

"She looked a lot better today." Kate said, standing at the doorway and watching Ellie sleep. Jack had been giving her antibiotics for the past three days and it had brought her fever almost totally down, and her cough was gone. She was getting fed up of staying in the hatch all the time. Even though she wasn't feeling totally healthy, being cooped up wasn't exactly fun.

"Maybe tomorrow we could take her down to the beach for a few hours" Jack said, "She's going crazy in here." He smiled, remembering when he had gotten into the hatch that morning to give Ellie her meds. He had found her in the living room, arranging all of the books and records in the into alphabetical order. When he had asked her why exactly she was doing it she had replied, "There's nothing better to do."

"I think she'd like that, she hasn't seen Noah since..." Kate's voice trailed off when she saw Jack's face cloud over at the mention of Noah's name. "Jack, I really think you need to let it go."

"Let it go? They were in his tent. In the middle of the night. Together." Jack said forcefully.

"She stayed with him because I was going to be on duty all night! She didn't want to be on her own! They weren't doing anything." Kate said in Ellie's defence.

"So they say. We don't know what they were doing."

"They weren't doing anything!" Kate hissed. "She's seventeen Jack. Don't you remember being seventeen?" Jack stopped in his tracks, staring at her.

"Yeah I do. But I also remember being twenty-two and I don't want her to get hurt. I mean, Jesus, Kate. When I saw her lying on the ground the other night...I couldn't breathe. I thought he'd...I thought she was-

"I know," Kate whispered softly, her hand coming up to rest on Jack's cheek. She looked into his eyes, "Noah wouldn't do anything to hurt Ellie, he adores her, you've seen the way he looks at her." She laid her lips against his in a gentle, practised kiss.

"I just don't want anything to happen to her."

"And that is exactly the way a father is supposed to feel." Kate said, eliciting a smile. "You're a good dad."

"You're not exactly a bad mom." He replied, and this time he initiated the kiss.

"You sure know how to scare a guy." Noah said, placing a gently kiss on Ellie's forehead. They had been walking around the camp, hand-in-hand, for almost ten minutes. Jack and Kate were the other side of the beach, talking with Rose and Bernard.

"Sorry." She said, "I didn't exactly mean to do it, did I?"

"Yeah well. I'm just glad you're ok." Noah said,

"Yeah. Those pills Jack was giving me tasted like hell."

"If it didn't taste bad it wouldn't be good for you." Noah wrapping his arms around her waist. Ellie laughed as he kissed the tip of her nose.

"So. What did you tell them?"

"About what?" Ellie asked, confused.

"About why you were in my tent in the middle of the night." Noah said, raising his eyebrow.

"Oh!" Ellie laughed, understanding what Noah was talking about. "I think Jack's over it now. With Kate in the hatch that night and everything, if I'd been where I was supposed to be...He was a bit, well, angry to begin with, y'know, that I was with you, alone, in your tent. At night." Ellie smiled. "We had a very...interesting conversation yesterday."

"Interesting how?" Noah asked, slightly worried and envisioning all the ways in which it was possible for Jack, a surgeon, to kill him and make it look like an accident.

"Well when I spoke to Kate about it alone she was fine, once I had sworn that we were just sleeping." Ellie said. "Jack took more convincing. It was quite sweet really, he was trying to hard not to embarrass me. But he's ok now. And he's not going to poison your food or smother you while you sleep. I promise." She laughed at Noah's expression. She took his hand again and snuggled into his side.

"You know, there is something good to come out of this." She said quietly.

"What's that then?" Noah asked absently, running a thumb over Ellie's fingers.

"We're officially allowed sleepovers now."