CHAPTER THREE
"Miley, Miley, wake up." I heard someone calling from far away. My head felt sore and stinging and like it was filled with cotton wool balls. My lungs were aching and my entir body was frozen. "Come on, Miley, wake up, don't do this to me." The voice was frantic and becoming closer. "Wake up, Miles, just wake up." I coughed, feeling something spill out of my mouth. I heard a sigh of relief as I kpet coughing up water or vomit or whatever it was. Then I open my eys, crying out against the harsh sunlight in my eyes. "Thank God." The person as I rolled onto my side painfully and tried to force myself to focus; my vission was all blurry and spotty and my breathing was harsh. I tried to remember what had happened. "It's okay, Miley, you're okay." I felt the person - a man - lifting me up so I was sitting with my back leaning against something. "Open you're eyes." I groaned, but reluctantly obeyed the commanded, desperate voice "There we go." I found my spotty, blurry vission focussed on a pair of puppy-dog brown eyes. Pretty eyes, I mused through my dizzy haze. "Stay with her, don't let her fall asleep, keep her awake, she's probably concussed." The person with the pretty puppy-dog eyes told someone next to me. The the puppy-dog eyes were gone. I groaned as I reached for my aching, throbbing head. I was wet all over, I realised, that's why I was cold, becuase I was in wet clothes.
"Miley?" I knew that voice, I tried to get my brain to cooperate and focus as I turned to see Lilly. Lilly was soaking wet too and she looked panicked and terrified. "Miley? Are you okay?"
"My head hurts." I whined, feeling my eyes start to droop.
"Woah, stay awake, Miley." Lilly commanded, shaking me a little.
"What happened?" I asked, trying to obey.
"The-the plane crashed." Lilly said hoarsely and I felt my eyes widen. My vission started to clear and I looked aroud; we were on a beach and there were people stumbling around, some coming out of the ocean. I could hear screaming. People were dying. There was a giant part of the plane on the beach, and other large chunks were all over the beach and washing up on the shore. "You hit your head and passed out, Joe says you need to stay awake."
"Joe?" The puppy-dog eyes flashed in my mind.
"Joe Jonas." Even after a freaking plane crash Lilly still managed to sound excited at the prospect of being near a Jonas Brother. "He was sitting next to you."
"Oh." Now I remembered talking to him, he seemed kind of moody and depressed. "Sh-shouldn't we help?" I looked at everyone else, running around, trying to get awa from the fires and free the people still in the plane.
"Joe said to stay here, where it's safe." Lilly shook her head firmly and I felt her grip my wrist as if she knew I was going to try and help.
"Where's Joe?" I asked, he'd been the one in front of me when I woke up.
"I don't know." Lilly sighed, looking over to the half plane on the beach. Joe had run into that? What if he got hurt? "Rescue should come soon though, everything's gonna be okay." Right. They're gonna know the plane crashed, and we were going to be rescued.
Y
It was dark now. And we hadn't been rescued. According to one of the other survivors the plane we were on could hold 250 passengers; there was about 200 passengers on board, plus flight attendants and the pilots... Right now all the survivors were sitting around a giant signal fire and there was only about 50 of us. Over 150 people dead. Joe had come back to me and he hadn't left my side since.
"How long do you it'll take?" I asked, looking out at the ocean. It looked so calm now, but it had killed so many people. "For rescue?"
"It's a big ocean, maybe a couple of days?" Joe shrugged.
"What happened? You saw it, I know you did." He'd changed so drastically after he looked out the window.
"The wing was on fire." Joe got a far-out look on his face. "Then we started to spin, then it hit the water. It fliped a couple of times, and then it broke in half. The front half that we were in stayed in the water, and the other half..." He gestured over to the part of the plane down the beach. "At least that's what I think happened." He sighed and looked at me. "How's your head?"
"Fine." I dismissed, there were people with a lot worse injuries than mine.
"Hey, we found food." A group of men had ventured into the half of the plane on the beach to look for stuff since no-one wanted to go into the forest behind us.
"Thanks." I smiled weakly. Joe and I had been getting odd looks ever since everything had happened; we were celebrities and they didn't know how to react to us. The guys had found a bunch of those airline meals and were handing them out.
"What was in the bag that was so important you had to risk your life for it?" I flushed, remembering how he'd had to grab hold of me and how he'd protected me when I reached for my bag. The bag was still next to me when I regained enough sense to notice it.
"Beary." I sighed, picking up my golden teddy bear who was now dirty and sandy and I' sitting next to my feet, drying by the fire.
"You could have died." Joe shook his head in disbelief. "You risked your life a fucking teddy bear?" I shrugged helplessly, I couldn't explain why I'd done it.
"I've had him since I was three." I mumbled abashedly. "I wasn't really thinking straight when I did it." I defended myself.
"I should hope not." Joe scoffed.
"You were bringing it to Paris?" Lilly spoke up and I blushed. "School was bad enough, but, Miles, we're graduates now, you can't bring your teddy bear everywhere." I blushed and looked down. "Grow up, Miley."
"Hey, chill out." Joe frowned, picking at his airplane dinner.
"Chill out?" Lilly rolled her eyes. "She could have died because of that stupid toy and you're telling me to chill out?" I just looked down and started picking through my carry-on.
"Well, if it means something to her, what does it matter? You're no worse off because of it." Joe snapped, his voice taking on a dark and dangerous edge. "Sure, it was stupid, but it's over now."
"HEY!" Some guy - one of the ones who got the food I think - yelled out to everyone. "Looks like we're going to be herre for the night at least, so if you want to sleep just get comfortable, don't go too far, and we'll make sure there's always someone awake to lookout for rescue." He announced and people started murmuring, a couple grabbing some blankets and finding a spot on the beach to lay down.
"Why can't we sleep in the plane?" Lilly asked in confusion. "I mean, at least it's safe in there and it's shelter."
"And full of dead bodies." Joe said in a monotone. I yawned and he instantly looked at me. "You should sleep." He told me.
"She can't sleep if she has a concussion." Lilly argued and I sighed. Really, they seemed to be fine together before, and Lilly still seemed starstruck and now they couldn't seem to agree on anything.
"Sleep is better for a concussion, I just have to wake ever hour or two to mak sure she still knows who she is." Joe shook his head with a sigh. "Trust me, I know from experience."
"You don't have to look after me, Joe, I'll be fine." I told him, feeling guilty. He'd practically been my bodyguard and nurse all afternoon and night, and he freaking saved my life. If it weren't for him I know I would have gone down with the plane in the water, I wasn't even conscious for most of it.
"I don't mind." I saw Joe smile slightly in the firelight. He had the same dark and moody look on his face as he did when we met at the airport and on the plane, but it was different now; less moody and depressed and more determind. Strong. "It's better than drowning my sorrows in Paris."
"Well, I'm gonna go to sleep, guys, I'm trusting you with my sister, Jonas." Lilly narrowed her eyes at Joe and he smirked.
"She's in safe hands." He confirmed and I rolled my eyes.
"Would you two stop talking about me like I'm not here?" I requested.
"Nah." Joe grinned, looking past me at Lilly. "She's a bossy little thing, huh?"
"Sneaky one too, keep an eye on her." Lilly played along with the charade.
"Still here." I sing-songed and Lilly laughed.
"Night, Miles." She hugged me tightly for a moment. I sighed and leaned back on the sand, looking at the stars.
"Don't see stars like this in L.A, huh?" Joe leaned back too and I smiled.
"Even growing up in Tennessee I didn't see this many stars." I marvelled, it was like a million twinkling lights hovering over us. "So why were you trying to drown your sorrows?" I asked him, I don't know why I was so determind to find out. I just-I'd never seen him like this, he always upbeat, hyper, outgoing. This new Joe was like a shadow of himself.
"Just..." Joe sighed, locking his hands behind his head. "Everything." He said, turning his eyes skyward again. "Six years I've always been the funny, hyper, outgoing, crazy one... Things get bottled up and I just wanted to escape for a while, go somewhere I didn't have to put up a front and I could just chill."
"I get it." I nodded, just like keeping a secret for six years, it all just bottles up until it spills out.
"Fight with the bros, shit with the record label, all the Goddamn rumors, and the whole world would implode if I went on a date." Joe shook his head. "So I decided to catch the first lane out of town and get away for a few weeks, and it just happened to be Paris." He looked over at me and smiled. "Despite the whole crashing thing I'm happy I got to see you again. Three years is too long."
"Is that why you texted me?" I had been wondering what made him text me out of nowherre after three years.
"Yeah. That and I saw a video of a fight at your graduation." He chuckled and I groaned. "Someone Flittered it to me, you went viral. Thought you could use someone nice."
"It was the highlight of my day." I smiled, settling back and I couldn't help but yawn again.
"Get some sleep." Joe instructed.
"You should too." I told him, rolling onto my stomach and using my backpack as a pillow in the sand as I tried to get more comfortbale. "Saving peoples lives must be exhausting."
"Night, Milo." Joe grinned, and I flushed hotly when I felt him press a soft kiss to my forehead.
"Night, Joey."
R
Day 2
"Four hours away from the States, seven hours before we were supposed to land, so we're just over a third of the way, plus any distance from going off course trying to land when we were crashing, that's if they got the message out soon enough." Lilly was saying as we sat on the beach, watching the ocean lap harmlessly against the shore when only yesterday it had almost killed us. "It could take days for them to find us." She sighed.
"And then if they didn't get the warning out in time then the only indication would be that we didn't land, then it would take even longer because they'd have to search half the ocean." I added glumly, slowly starting to resign myself to the fact that we were going to be here for a couple of days at least. Days of our families not knowing if we were okay. Days of the families of the dead not know, but having hope. Days of the injured getting worse because there wasn't a doctor amongst the survivors. It was a slow morning so far and Lilly and I weren't the only ones just sitting on the beach, and some were still asleep. None of us wanted to face the reality of the crash yet. Our plane had crashed; over 150 people were dead, about 10 more had severe injuries and might not make it long enough to be rescued without a doctor. None of us knew what to do to help them either.
"So much for a relaxing Parisian vacation." Lilly said and I nodded, I'd been wishing we'd stayed home too, where it was safe and we were with our families. When our families knew that we were alive and safe.
"Jeez, you guys are depressing." Joe muttered, rolling over and rubbing his eyes as he woke up.
"Sorry." Lilly and I chorused as he sat up.
"Yeah, whatever." Joe scratched his messy, black curls and looked around, squinting a little in the sunlight. "Listen, we're gonna be rescued, I don't care how long it takes, but I'll make sure you both get back home safely."
"My hero." I fluttered my eyelashes and sighed dramatically.
"Yeah, I'm a regular knight in tin foil armor." Joe rolled his eyes, stretching and groaning. "I think I slept on a rock, my back hurts like a bitch."
"Or maybe it's because you really are a hero and you aved a lot of lives yesterday." I crawled over to him. "Lay down, I'll give you a massage." I mean, it was the least I'd do after h saved my life.
"You don't have to." Joe blushed, he actually blushed, his cheeks turned a cute shade of pink and he got all shy.
"I'd go with it, Dude, Miley has magic hands." Lilly grinned and this time I turned pink. "Her horse broke my leg once, and she's a horrible nurse, but she give great massages."
"Come on, you saved my life, dang flabit, let me do something for you." I urged and he sighed.
"Fine, but only 'cause you're so adorable when you pout." Joe agreed, laying on his stomach and I smiled triumphantly as I moved to sit on the back of his legs.
"Back to adorable, huh?" I teased and he chuckled, his whole body vibrating.
"Well, it is kinda cute when you do that cat thing in your sleep." Lilly mused as I started on Joe's back.
"Oh, fuck, you are good." Joe groaned and I giggled.
1) What was your favourite part of the chapter?
2) Did any of you watch Radio City? What was your favourite new song? Who else wants Let's Go to be the new single?
3) It is 12:01 which makes it officially my Moms birthday.
4) Miley's got a lot of appearences coming up' Two and a Half Men, ROVE LA, I heard something about Jay Leno? I haven't missed an episode of Two and a Half Men in the 10 years since it started, so Miley makes it, like, an extra bonus :D
5) What do you think of this version of Joe so far?
Either 3 reviews with all the questions answered, or 5 reviews in total. Considering the hits this has gotten in the last 2 chapters it should be easy.
Smiler For Joe!