Sawyer couldn't remember a time he had cried to hard, in front of other people. He had been angry at first, the depressed, and now the tears had come, just when he had got her back. He buried her face against his shoulder, and leaned his head down so that no one could see his tears, but it was a futile attempt because half the camp was now crowding round and they could all hear his sobs.

"Sawyer?" Jack asked.

Sawyer ignored him, and pulled away from the little girl. He rocked her a little, and she looked up at him. The girl recognised him, and reached out for him again. He pulled her close, for once, not caring what anyone thought or was saying. "Shh..." He comforted. "It's Ok, baby, it's Ok." Then came the two words that shocked everyone. "Daddy's here."

The nearest available tent was Sawyer's, and Jack moved Kate there so that he could clean her up. Jack told Sawyer to follow him as well, so that he could check the girl. Kate wasn't exactly unconscious, but she was oblivious to the world, and wasn't aware of what was happening around her, so Jack had to carry her into Sawyer's shelter. While Jack laid Kate down on the airline chair that Sawyer used for a bed, Sawyer sat down against a peice of fuselage and cradled the little girl who had stopped crying now.

Jack had his medical supplies ready from the search party he had organised, fearing the worst, and emptied his bag on the sands, bringing out the peroxide so that he could see the full extent of the damage. Kate didn't even wince as he applied the liquid that usually stung her skin. She just stared into space, not looking at anyone, not seeing anything but what was going on in her head.

After cleaning her up, and learning that it was only scratches and bruises that he could do nothing more with, Jack turned to Sawyer. He was about to speak when he simply watched him instead, seeing a side to Sawyer that he had never seen before. He saw tracing the infants face, all the cuts and bruises, and wiping away the tears that had fallen down her face.

"Sawyer..." Jack started, and Sawyer finally looked at him. "I need to take a look at her." He said, and Jack knelt on the ground beside Sawyer and the little girl. Sawyer tried to turn the little girl in his lap so that she was facing towards Jack and he could get a look at her injuries. She sat still while he made sure there were no breaks or fractures, but when he tried to apply the peroxide to the cut on her head she shyed away and hid against Sawyer.

"Come on, baby, the doctor needs to help you." Sawyer said to her, but she shook her head.

"No. Hurts Daddy." She said in a painful whine.

Sawyer rubbed her back. "I know, baby, I know, but this will only hurt for a minute, and then it won't hurt anymore, Ok?" She nodded, and allowed Sawyer to turn her back around without a fuss.

She started crying when Jack put the peroxide on her, really screaming in pain, and when Jack put it down, Sawyer held onto her to calm her down. Jack returned to Kate for a moment, and tried to get her to move.

"Kate? Kate, honey, can you hear me?" He said, moving a pen infront of her face. Her eyes made no move to follow it in which ever direction he moved it in. Her eyes started to droop. "Come on, Kate, stay with me!" She made no effort to attemp to stay awake, and her eyes fell closed. Jack checked her pulse yet another time, and then sat back in the sand, between Sawyer and Kate. She wasn't in a coma, she was just asleep.

"She Ok?" Sawyer asked, as the little girl settled into a sleep in his arms.

Jack looked at Kate before back to Sawyer. "Honestly, I don't think so. Physically, yes. Just a few scratches, bruises, nothing that won't heal in a few days. She's in shock from something, from whatever happened out there. She's not responding to anything, which is my main concern, because we need to know what happened to her and...uhh..." He gestured towards the little girl.

"Oh, Ella." Sawyer said, realising that he hadn't once said the infants name yet.

"...To her and Ella," Jack continued. "If there's something out there that's a danger to us, then we need to be prepared." There was a silence between them and Sawyer turned his attention back to Ella. "So...she's your daughter?" Jack asked.

Sawyer nodded. "Yeah, she's my daughter." He replied.

"She's beautiful." Jack said.

Sawyer smiled proudly. "Thanks. Gets that from her Mom, not me."

"You can see you in her." Jack corrected. "With that stubborn streak."

Surprisingly, Sawyer didn't jump defensively, he was just happy to have his daughter back. "I'd given up on her, you know." He said, and Jack frowned in confusion. "On finding her. After two months I thought I would be useless to keep on hoping that she was still out there. Then there was the stuff with Mike and Claire's kids, I dunno, somethin' in me that had been holding on just gave up."

He didn't know why he was opening up to Jack, but he figured that he could, seeing as he had helped Ella.

"Where is she?" Jack asked. "Her Mom?"

Sawyer sighed. "She-She's gone. Died giving birth to Ella." That day still haunted him, the day when Brianna had died. "Nearly lost Ella that day to. They saved her, but there was nothing they could do for Brianna."

"You raised her yourself?" Jack asked.

"Well, didn't have no one else around I could ask for help."

Jack felt a sudden respect for Sawyer that he never had done before. This man, this outlaw, this outsider, had dealt with loosing the mother of his baby, and then raised a baby on his own to become what appeared to be a healthy, well loved child.

"Besides, I love her, and that was enough for both of us. We had each other." Sawyer continued. It was strange for Jack to hear Sawyer talking of love, of protection, but it was rolling off Sawyer's tongue naturally.

Jack watched the way that Sawyer interacted with his sleeping daughter, how he cradled her, smoothed the little hair she had. For a moment, it seemed that Sawyer had become on of them - a survivor - a human being, even.

"It was her birthday yesterday." Sawyer muttered. "Two years old." He had missed her birthday, after he had promised that they would go to Disneyland and she could see Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty just like she watched them on television. There was the other one, the one she watched all the time, what was it? Tarzan! She loved him to sing the songs to her, that even he knew because it was always on their TV. It was that particular Phil Collins song that used to drive him insane before he had started to sing it every night. "Didn't even have her a present."

"Surely having her Dad back is a present enough." Jack said, before checking back on Kate, who was stirring. "Kate? Kate, can you hear me?"

Her voice was weak, but it replied "Jack?"

"Yeah, I'm here, how do you feel?"

"Tired. Weak." She said. "The girl. Ella. She here?" She asked, trying to sit up, but Jack forced her to lie back down.

"She's here, she's fine."

"She said she was on the plane with her Dad. I had to bring her back, in case someone was looking for her." Kate explained. "Can you find her father, Jack?"

Jack shook his head. "Her father already found her." He moved a little and Kate turned her head to see Sawyer sitting there.

"Hey, Freckles." He said softly.

"Sawyer?" She asked.

"Yeah. She's mine." He said.

"Kate, can you remember what happened, where you found her, anything?" Jack asked.

Kate fell silent, and then shook her head. "Someone took me. Can't remember who, but I woke up in this other camp. There were a few kids there, and women, and she came up to me, asked me if I was on the plane." Kate told them both. "She asked me if I knew her daddy, and I asked her his name, and she said she didn't know. I knew I had to get her out of there, before she turned into this zombie like the other kids."

"Zombie?" Sawyer asked, alarmed.

"They were just walking around, aimless. Not smiling, not laughing. Except her." Her eyes closed. "I'm tired, Jack. I need to sleep."

Jack smiled at her. "Go to sleep, honey." He said.

"Will you stay?" She asked him.

"Yeah." He promised, and she fell back into a deeper sleep.

He turned back to Sawyer, who was looking at him alarmed. "What were they going to do to my daughter?" He asked.