CHAPTER FOUR

"I think we should split up." A man - I think he said he was a cop or something - anounced to the group of survivors. Without a doctor and none of us knowing what to do another person had died during the night. It was depressing, so many people were dying, I wanted to help, but I didn't know what to do, I'm a musician, not a doctor.

"WHAT?" It wasn't just me who yelled in disbelief at the thought of splitting up our group of survivors.

"Not indeffinately." One of the other men said. "We're running low on essentials like food and water, so a group of us should go into the forest and get some fruit, or find wildlife, maybe even civilisation." He told us, the idea of other people - rescue - made me hopeful, but reducing our numbers didn't seem like a good idea. What were we supposed to do if rscue came and they weren't back? "Another couple could see if they can catch some fish." There was only 56 of us left, another three might not survive the end of the day. 50 people other than Joe, Lilly and me if they died.

"Shouldn't we stay together?" Joe spoke up from where he'd sat next to me all morning, almost like he was guarding me. "What if rescue comes? Or there's something dangerous in there?"

"We've got guns, if there's something dangerous we can kill it." The first man said, holding up a weapon. "There are three flare guns, if rescue comes fire one."

"I'm with him, it's not safe." A young woman shook her head and smiled sweetly at Joe. I rolled my eyes, she wanted to be 'with him' alright.

"Four of us are going in, we're going to get us food, unless you want to starve." The cop said in an authoritive voice, like it was the end of the conversation, like he was suddenly the dictator. "Maybe some of you should try and catch some fish, or boil some water."

"You're not our leader." Lilly spoke up, just what I was thinking. "We should take a vote, we're all in this together until we're rescued."

"This isn't a democracy-" The man started to say, looking a little pissed.

"It's not a dictatorship either." Lilly cut in, crossing her arms. "If we're going to split up we should vote on it."

"Fine." The man said through clenched teeth, glaring in our direction. "Everyone in favor of eating, raise your hand." I rolled my eyes, it's not like we'd starve if we didn't go into the forest; there were trees all along the beach that had bananas and other fruit on them - which is what they were going into the forest for - plus we could stil try and catch fish. I mentally counted as the hands went up.

"And everyone who thinks we can eat the fruit off the trees without going into the forest and splitting up what's left of us?" Joe emphasised, raising his hand, and so did Lilly and I. 3 couldn't vote, there were 4 kids who automatically sided with Joe Jonas and the artist formally known as Hannah Montana, plus the girl who was trying to hang all over Joe. I counted the votes and let out a breath.

"Twenty-seven." I nodded, one vote. If we'd lost one vote the people who wanted to split the group would have won.

"Great, let's go, Guys." The cop decided.

"Hang on, we won; twenty-seven to twenty-six." I stood up, affronted.

"Yeah, but the brats don't count." He dismissed, gesturing to the kids who had been sitting close to us. I hated to think what happened to their parents, because no-one had claimed them. There were three little boys who looked like brothers - the oldest looked aroun 12 and the youngest around 7 - and a little girl who was around 4 or so. "So it's twenty-three to twenty-six. Which means, we're going."

"That's not fair, we vote and the majority said we all stay here, together." Joe growled out, his fists clenching at his sides.

"Life isn't fair, Pretty Boy, get used to it." He snapped, checking to see if his gun was loaded. "Why don't you and the little singstar stay here and babysit the brats if you don't want to go."

"Sweet niblets." I gasped, Joe was suddenly not next to me; he had shot over to the cop and had his arm twisted behind his back, and his other hand gripping his wrist tightly until he dropped his gun.

"Don't talk about her like that." I heard him growl in the cops ear threateningly. "We had a vote, we won, you stay here." And then Joe let him go, pushing him to the sand and glaring. He looked dangerous. "You wanna hunt so badly, go fishing." Joe leaned down and picked up the gun. So much for the guy being a cop, he couldn't even fight off a 'pretty boy' as he called him. "We'll pick fruit from the egde of the forest."

"What was that for?" I demanded of Joe in a whisper when he came back over to me, Lilly and the kids.

"You think after everything I did to save you I'm going to let some stuck up, poser tough guy try and insult you?" Joe mumbled with a shrugged and I gaped at him. Was this the same Joe I met three years ago? When did he get so dangerous? When did he become so protective of me? Why me?

"Okay, I don't think the angry guy should have a gun." Lilly cut in and Joe rolled his eyes.

"Here." He took the magazine out of the handgun, tossing Lilly the bullets and handing me the gun. "Two parts, no danger." The whole beach was silent for a few minutes, still shocked that rockstar Joe Jonas had blown up so violently and basically incapacitated the cop who had been dictating everything since last night.

"Miley?" The little girl tugged on my jeans and looked up at me with big brown eyes.

"Yeah, Sweetie?" I knelt down next to her with a sigh. I'm sure most of the other survivors were better qualified to care for children, but they'd attached themselves to the two people they knew from TV.

"I'm hungry." The little girl said with a cute little pout. The cop sent me a smirk and I sighed again.

"Okay, Sweetie." I nodded standing up again.

"We should start on that fruit." I muttered to Lilly.

"Right." She nodded. "Jonas!" My best friend called to the man who was standing, staring at the ocean with his arms crossed and an angry look still on his face.

"What?" Joe bit out.

"Put your energy to use and help me pick some fruit, the native are getting hungry." She ordered and I laughed, shaking my head. Joe glanced at Lilly, then me, then to the four kids an dhis expression softed.

"Okay." He let out a slow breath. "Hey, Kiddo." Joe beckoned the older of the boys over with a sudden grin. He whispered something to the boy and his eyes went comically wide and he nodded frantically. "Alright." Joe called to everyone else. "We're going to get some fruit from the edge of the forest, everyone who wants to help is more than welcome." Looking at Joe, all leader-like, the sun glistening off his strong body, it was deffinately easy to see what girls all over the world fell for. "Stay here, Grad, I've got a lookout." I sighed and watched as Joe, Lilly and a group of people walked towards the trees, Joe and Lilly talking amongst themselves.

A

55 Survivors. None of us knew what to do when the last one died, he'd been bleeding from his stomach since the crash and try as we might to stop it, to keep him alive until rescue got here... He bled out. All I could do was sit and watch, barely managing not to cry as I tried to keep the kids from watching two of the men carry his body back to the plane, out of site. Except out of site didn't mean out of mind. It hadn't taken long for Joe, Lilly and the group to come back from the edge of the trees with giant bunches of almost-ripe bananas and mangos and coconuts. I had no idea where the Hell we were that had coconuts, it had to be a tropical island, but where? Was it inhabited? Was it even charted on maps?

Another one of the survivors was an architect named Ted who suggested we should build a shelter because there were storm clouds closing in despite the previously sunny day and the only other option for shelter if it started raining was the half-plane full of dead bodies. That idea got most of the guys working to pulling over giant pieces of sheet metal that had broken from the plane and washed up after the crash and rbought them over to start building a shelter. Meanwhile, in an attempt to totally play into stereo types, why the men were building most of the women were braiding tree leaves to help as a roof or something for the shelter. Joe was helping with the muscle - all that working out he did certainly helped - and sometimes I couldn't help but stare at him, his muscles rippling, his whole body shining with sweat, he'd taken his shirt off as well, and I'd blushed and hurriedly looked away when a drop of drool fell on my hand. I was literally drooling over Joe Jonas.

By 5:00 PM - most of our watches were still working - the clouds had rolled in and completely blocked out the setting sun and Ted declared that shelter was about as good as it was going to get for today. If rescue didn't come by tomorrow we'd try and do better if the weather stayed bad. I justed wanted off this island, I wanted to be rescued, I didn't want to have to think about a prolonged stay here.

"Here." I smiled, handing Joe a bottle of water, there was still plenty of water from the plane, but we had tried to start making some drinkable water from the seawater; so far we'd managed to fill two bottles in the whole day. What smart people we are, it took us hours to figure out that we had to boil it, capture the steam and get it into the bottles, leaving the seasalt behind.

"Thanks." Joe grinned, the way he was looking at me was almost knowing. As if he knew I'd been staring at him, gawking, drooling. It made me blush and look away as he took a drink of the water. "So, I guess this is kinda like real life Survivor, huh?" Stranded on an island, building shelter, getting food, making fire. It was easy to make the connection, but in Survivor there wa never a half a plane full of dead people.

"Yeah, just don't get voted off." I said dully, my eyes flickering to the plane.

"We'll make it home in no time, Milo." Joe assured, his face earnest in the firelight.

"Why do you call me Milo?" I asked, cocking my head and he grinned again.

"Three years ago, when Hannah 'hired'-" he did air quotes and everything. "-Milo and Otis to try and scare us off, saying Robby Ray stole their song... I could never forget those blue eyes of yous, with just a touch of green, just like the ocean." I flushed and looked down, the way he spoke was soft, almost reverent. "I saw them on Hannah and they made me feel like warm gooey mush on the inside, then I saw them on 'Milo'-" again with the air quotes. "-and then again on Hannah, it didn't take long to figure out that Hannah and Milo were the same person." He reached over tugged on the ends of my hair.

"Maybe there are some braincells up there." I teased, reaching up and tousling his sweat-dampened hair. "Who woulda thought?"

"Hey." Joe pouted exageratedly and I giggled. "By the way." He was suddenly smirking victoriously. "You gotta kiss Carter."

"What?" Carter was the older of the boys who Joe had somehow managed to make my mini bodyguard all day while he was working.

"I told him if he kept you safe for me I'd get you to kiss him." Joe snickered and I glared at him.

"How could you do that to a little boy?" I gasped, but he just kept snickering.

"Hey, it'll be you letting him down if you don't, the kid has, like, biggest crush in the world on you."

"You're a mean man, leading him on like that, I didn't promise him anything." I accused, but it didn't seem to phase him.

"You're really gonna rush that boys dreams?" Joe asked all dramatically. "Break his heart? Destroy every notion of true love-"

"Okay, okay, shut up, Dork Face." I laughed, shaking my head.

"I'll have you know I'm a sexy man-beast." Joe said indignantly.

"Let's just agree to disagree." I teased and he gasped over exageratedly.

"How's your head?" Joe suddenly turned serious again and I shrugged.

"Fine." I mean other than a slight headache I had been fine all day. "What's up with you?" I guess now was a good a time as any to get to the bottom of Joe's sudden protective streak over me. "Why are you so... Protective over me suddenly?"

"I don't know." He shrugged, looking out over the fire. Lilly had excused herself a few minutes ago to go to the other side of the plane out of site where it had been designated as the bathroom area, but she was come back now. "When I saw the wing was on fire all I could think about was making sure you were okay, I didn't care about anything else." He looked far away, like he was remembering.

"Choose the leaves wisely back there." Lilly said as she sat down next to me and Joe snapped back to the present, shaking his head. "I think there's poison oak and that is one place you don't want poison oak." I shuddered at the thought as Lilly dried her seawater washed hands on her shorts. "So, what's up?"

"Nothin' much." Joe shrugged, grabbing a handful of sand and watching it trickle through his fingers. "So, what were you guys gonna do in Paris?" He asked, looking up at us as if we weren't just having a conversation about his unexpected, unexplained protectiveness over me.

"Sight-see." I shrugged, I'd been to Paris before, but that had been for concerts and stuff and I didn't really get the chance to see the sights.

"Shop." Lilly added.

"Boys." We both said at the same time.

"Pfft." Joe rolled his eyes. "American men are ten times hotter." There was almost a hint of resentment in his voice, but I brushed it off.

"But, they'll also cheat on you, dump you, break your heart-" I started to list, remembering all my exes. Sometimes I wondered if it was me, not them.

"Not all of them." Lilly interrupted indignantly. "My Ollie-pop is the sweetest gentleman." She insisted.

"Ollie-pop?" Joe raised his eyebrws. "She doesn't really all him that, right?" He turned to me.

"And he calls her Lilly-pop." I nodded and he shuddered.

"Might as well just cut off his balls now, doesn't sound like he's gonna use them for much." Joe muttered lowly so Lilly couldn't hear and I giggled.

Okay, so I've decided I'm going to rotate the updates for this, Queen Diaries, and Camp Rock: Year Two. Next is going to be QD, which only has 6 chapters left until the end o.O

1) What's your favourite part of the chapter?
2) What do you think or hope will happen next?
3) Have any of you heard about Miley's new tour next year? I think I've said it before, but I know Ive certainly thought it; Miley goes on tour every odd year. 2007 she started the Best Of Both Worlds tour, 2009 was Wonderworld, 2011 was Gypsy Heart, and now there's going to be a new tour next year. I can't be the only one who sees the pattern can I?
4) Have any of you read Camp Rock: Year Two yet? If so please review, if not please read it and then review it :P
5) How do you like the progression of Joe and Miley so far?

Smiler For Joe!