Disclaimer: Sadly, I do NOT own the show "Lost". However, I do own my Original Character ( Kennedy White ), as well as her background, and her plot on the island.

Author's note: I hope everyone liked the last chapter, I loved it! So, maybe Sawyer isn't such an ass, or is he? He seems to be protective over Kennedy, but is willing to risk his asshole reputation to keep her safe? And why does he want to protect her? What does he know about Kennedy that no one else does? Well, I hope you are happy with this next chapter. By the way, this sign - xXx means that the story is going to a different scene or skipping time. I hope this makes everything less confusing. Also, don't forget to review. Thank you so much, guys! :)

{Kennedy's POV}

I was still standing by Sawyer's side, trembling. Boone was examining the bear which had finally ceased to breathe or move.

"That can't be a polar bear." He said standing up.

"It's a polar bear." Kate and Sayid said in unison.

"Wait a minute. Polar bears don't usually live in the jungle." Shannon pointed out.

"Spot on." Charlie commented sarcastically.

"No, polar bears don't live near this far south." Sayid agreed. I could hear every word though they were slightly muffled by the distant ringing in my ears.

"This one does." said Boone. Sawyer moved from my side. I wasn't sure if I was relieved or upset that he did.

"Did." He corrected the younger man. "It did."

Kate turned to him.

"Where did that come from?" She asked.

"Probably Bear Village. How the hell do I know?" Sawyer answered with a smart-ass answer.

"Not the bear, the gun."

Everyone seemed to focus on that little detail. I couldn't help getting that same, questioning feeling. What was he doing with a gun? Why did he bring it? More importantly how did he get it?

"I got it off one of the bodies." He answered stiffly.

"One of the bodies?" Sayid questioned.

"Yes, one of the bodies."

"People don't carry guns on planes." Shannon stated.

"They do if they're a U.S. Martial, sweet cheeks." Sawyer corrected. "There was one on the plane."

"How do you know that?" Kate asked. She almost seemed defensive about it.

"I saw a guy lying there with an ankle holster. So, I took the gun, thought it might come in handy. Guess what, I just shot a bear." Sawyer pointed out with a hint of disbelief from his own words. He made a good point, but I couldn't just brush off the subject that had started this.

"So why do you think he was a Martial?" Kate continued to interrogate him.

"Because he had a clip-on badge." He held up a Martial badge as proof. "I took that too, thought it was cool."

I wasn't sure if I believed him or not. When I thought Sawyer couldn't get any more confusing, he pulls out a gun.

"I know who you are." Sayid said to him. "You're the prisoner." That sick feeling was coming back.

"I'm the what?"

"You found a gun on a U.S. Martial? Yes, I believe you did. You knew where it was because you were the one he was bringing back to the States." Sayid said confidently. "Those handcuffs were on you. That's how you knew there was a gun."

"Piss off!" Sawyer spat.

"That's who are you, you son of a bitch."

"Be as suspicious of me as I am of you."

"But you are the prisoner." Sayid stated.

"Fine! I'm the criminal, but you're the terrorist." Sawyer countered. "We can all play a part. Who you wanna be?" He turned to Shannon.

Suddenly, Kate pushed Sawyer away and took his gun while he was off guard. A feeling of dread kicked me in the stomach. Now, everyone was staring at her. I noticed how quick they were ready to gasp and point the finger to whoever had the gun.

"Does anybody know how to use a gun?" She asked, aiming at Sawyer. I swallowed dryly several times. Was she going to shoot him?

"I think you just pull the trigger." Charlie answered. Jesus, don't say that!

"Don't use the gun." Sayid urged.

"I want to take it apart." Kate restated. I didn't even realize I was holding my breath until I sighed heavily. I felt a sense of relief, but my body was still trembling with anxiety.

"There's a button on the grip. Push that and it should eject the magazine." Sayid explained carefully. Kate did as he said and the magazine fell to the ground. "There's still a round in the chamber."

Hearing this, she aimed the gun back at Sawyer, as if she was thinking about using it on him.

"Hold the grip, pull the top part of the gun." The Iranian instructed. Again, Kate did as he said. She picked up the bullet off the ground and gave it to him. Then, she handed the empty gun back to Sawyer. He whispered something to her and she said something back, but I couldn't make it out. They walked away from each other.

"Let's take a minute to calm down." Sayid suggested. Sawyer walked off by himself. I wasn't going to resist the urge I had to follow him. God, I'm crazy. I walked a short distance through the brush and found Sawyer's back to me.

"Why did you do that?" I asked when I approached him. I couldn't keep my voice from shaking. He turned to face me.

"Did you wanna get mauled by the bear?" He asked sarcastically.

"That's not what I meant. Why did you want him to stop so badly?" I demanded, in a voice too calm for my current emotions.

"You already know why, Red. So don't bother asking." Was his short reply as his lips curved into a smirk.

"Then, can I know about the gun?" I didn't even know what I was saying. Where did that come from?

I watched Sawyer's eyes narrow, but he was still wearing that cunning little smirk of his. Sawyer wasn't going to admit anything to me, I should have known that. I turned and went right back to the others.

xXx

We were on the move once more. We'd left the grassland and were ascending the mountain again. There was a very awkward silence that no body wanted to break. Sawyer was walked beside me, but never looked at me. It gave me an odd, empty feeling. I noticed that he looked back, I did too, seeing Sayid pull out the transceiver.

"Oh! Now's a good time to check the radio. Not before, but now." Sawyer said sarcastically and loud enough to annoy everyone.

"We're up higher." Sayid explained.

"Yes, we are." The man beside me confirmed smartly.

"Hey! We've got a bar!" Sayid called out. We all quickly gathered around him, forming a circle. "Mayday mayday" He spoke into the transceiver, but all that responded was a high pitched noise.

"What is that?" Kate asked curiously.

"Feedback."

"Feedback from what? What would do that?"

"I don't know." Sayid answered, unsure.

"I'll tell ya what would do that, this guy not fixing the radio. The thing doesn't even work." Sawyer commented rudely. More high pitched sounds followed.

"No, no, no. It's not broken. We can't transmit because thing else is already transmitting." Sayid replied somberly. I noticed how quickly his excitement had faded.

"Transmitting from where?"

"What?" Shannon smiled widely.

"Some where close, the signal's strong." Sayid answered.

"Some where close? You mean on the island? That's great!"

"Maybe it's other survivors." Boone suggested gloomily.

"From our plane? How would that even-" Shannon began, but was quickly interrupted.

"What kind of transmission is it?" Sawyer asked, suddenly interested.

"It could be a sat-phone, maybe a radio somewhere."

"Can we listen to it?" Kate asked impatiently.

"Let me get the frequency first. Hold on." Sayid worked with the radio.

"There's no transmission." Sawyer said as he walked off.

"Shut up!"

"The rescue party, it has to be." Charlie said, his eyes full of hope. I couldn't understand what made Sawyer so sure that there was nothing on the radio. Maybe he's afraid of false hope. Maybe he hopes that it isn't anything because he doesn't want to leave. Why would he if he had to return to the life of a prisoner? It made sense. Wait. Did I believe Sayid was right?

Suddenly, a foreign, female voice came from the radio.

"The French! The French are coming! I've never been so happy, they're the French!" Charlie exclaimed with a wide grin. Sayid laughed happily. For a second, there was relief. I felt the excitement, but I didn't share the enthusiasm. I didn't know why.

"What's she saying?" Kate demanded.

"Does anyone speak French?"

"She does." Boone pointed at his sister. Shannon's eyes grew wide.

"No, I don't. What?"

"What the hell are you talking about? You spent a year in Paris!" Boone brought to her attention.

"Drinking, not studying."

Numbers were named off by a deep, man voice.

"Okay. What's that?" The happiness faded from Charlie's face.

"Oh no, no, no, no, no." Sayid said to the transceiver.

"No what?" Kate asked, her impatience growing.

"The batteries are dying!"

"How much time do we have?"

"Not much."

Everything was going chaotic again. Boone was trying to get Shannon to translate what was being said over the transceiver, but she kept crying. Sayid, Kate, and Charlie were panicking about the radio. Finally, everyone managed to talk Boone's sister into trying. She said that the French woman was repeating. Sayid was whispering to himself, I think. I could barely understand him.

"Does anyone know what the hell he's talking about?" Sawyer groaned impatiently.

"It's a running count of the number of times the message has been repeated!" Sayid answered restlessly. His eyes closed as if he was doing harsh number crunching in his head. "It's roughly thirty seconds long so . . ." He was whispering to himself so low that I couldn't hear.

"Don't forget to carry the one, chief."

"She's saying, please. She's saying, please help me . . . please come get me." Shannon said, finally making an effort to decipher the woman's message.

"Or she's not! You don't even speak French!" Sawyer shouted.

"Let her listen!" Kate growled back at him.

"Shut up, man!"

"Guys the battery." Charlie whispered. I drowned out everyone's voices and listened to the one on the transceiver. Coming from a family with high expectations, learning French was inevitable. Thankfully, Boone had put Shannon in the spotlight, I wouldn't have been able to function with that pressure.

"I'm alone now, I'm on the island alone. Please, someone come. They others, they're . . ." Shannon paused as did the French voice.

They're dead. My throat was instantly dry. Shannon repeated what I'd just heard. The light wind seemed much colder, and I didn't want to listen anymore.

"It killed them. It killed them all." The message ended.

What was once hopeful, was now gloomy.

"Sixteen years." Sayid uttered.

"What?"

"Sixteen years and five months. That's the count." Sayid repeated

"What the hell are you talking about?" Boone asked, clueless.

"The iterations. It's a distress call, a plea for help, a mayday. If the count is right, the message has been playing over and over for sixteen years." The Iranian said in a depressed tone.

"Someone else was stranded here?" Boone guessed.

"Maybe they came for them." Kate tried to lighten the situation.

"If someone came, why is it still playing?" Sawyer questioned.

An eerie silence fell over us and all hope seemed far away.

"Guys, " Charlie finally said. "Where are we?"

xXx

Finally, we were heading back to the beach. Though most of the group was now in dampened spirits, I was only concerned with getting back to camp. It was getting late, and the clouds overhead made for a gloomy mood.

"It's getting dark." Boone said, the first to speak in a while. It worried me. I didn't want to be out here in the dark, and the idea of that thing lurking around didn't help.

"Pick up the pace." Sawyer grumbled.

"Dick." Boone muttered under his breath.

"Little louder?" The blonde man taunted, trying to start more trouble.

"We should make camp." Sayid suggested.

"What, here?" Shannon asked nervously. I was glad to know I wasn't the only one nervous about staying out after dark.

"Yes, here." Sayid tossed his bag down and we slowly came to a stop. Sawyer kept going.

"I'm not stopping. You all have a nice cookout." He called back. Stubborn prick.

"Excellent! Walk through the jungle in the dark." Sayid said sarcastically.

"Ooh, 'fraid the trees are gonna get us?" Sawyer turned.

"No, what is knocking down the trees will get you."

"Well, if you're so worried about me. Why don't ya give me the clip back?" The blonde held up his useless gun.

"Put your gun back in your pants, Sawyer." Kate mocked. "Sayid's right. You keep walking, you're not going to make it back to the beach."

"Yeah, why's that?" Sawyer asked with a cocky grin. There was a hesitation, which made everyone a bit more nervous.

"Trust me." Kate spat.

Sawyer ended up staying at camp with us. The sky had blackened, with less stars than I remembered from the night before. I jumped at every small sound I heard within the jungle. The fire helped with warmth, but it didn't make me feel any safer.

"This is Australia." My attention turned to Sayid as he placed a rock in the grass. "This is us." He held up a stick that was burning on the end.

"Nice stick." Sawyer mumbled. I glanced at him from across the fire for a moment, wondering why he always had to put his two cents into every conversation.

"Two days ago we take off from Sydney. " Sayid continued, ignoring the other man's remark. He continued, moving the stick as if he was tracing out the route as he'd mentioned. "Now the pilot lost communication with the ground, correct?" He looked to Kate.

"Yeah, six hours in. He turned around and headed for Fiji."

"So, we changed course. Regrettably, no one knew we changed course. The turbulence hit." Sayid have a light shake to the stick, the blames bounced around. "We know the rest." He placed the burning end down into the grass and swept the fire out.

"The pilot said we were over a thousand miles off course." Kate added. Sayid took a seat. The chill of hopelessness in the air made me feel like the campfire now had no purpose left.

"Yeah, but they'll find us. They have satellites in space that can take pictures of your license plates." Charlie spoke up with a sense of positivity. I had noticed him to be the optimist

"If only we were all wearing license plates." Sayid replied gloomily.

"Well, aren't you the pessimist."

"Basic photography, point-and-shoot. Satellites can shoot, but they must be told where to point." Sayid explained.

"Oh, bollocks." Charlie grumbled, now looking at the glass half-empty.

"Okay, really enjoyed the pub show. Fantastic." Saywer started with his cheery sarcasm. "But we're stuck in the middle of damn nowhere. How 'bout we talk about that other thing." His tone had darkened.

I noticed Charlie glancing around. My stomach twisted with a sense of dread. I already had a feeling that I didn't want to hear any of it.

"You know that transmission Abdul picked up on his little radio? The French chick that said, they're all dead? The transmission's been on a loop for how long was it, freckles?" He turned his attention to Kate.

"Sixteen years." The brunette beside me rolled her eyes.

"Right. Let's talk about that." I hated the way Sawyer purposely made his deep voice so eerie. Please, just stop.

I brought my knees to my chest and hugged them, searching for security.

"Well, we have to tell the others when they get back." Boone stated surely.

"And tell them what exactly?" Shannon demanded. She and her brother argued for a brief moment.

"No one's going to tell them anything." Sayid's voice drowned out theirs. An awkward silence quickly followed. "To relay what we heard, without fully understanding it will cause a panic. If we tell them what we know, we take away their hope. And a hope is a very dangerous thing to lose."

No kidding.

"So we lie." Kate said, her eyes staring into the flames. Everyone seemed unsure of this, including me. This burden of keeping secrets was not what I'd bargained for when I agreed to come. No longer being a stray wasn't worth this.

I stared pensively into the fire, my eyes following the uprising flames until they flicked and disappeared. There, I found Sawyer's sea-colored eyes fixed on me. He didn't look away when I caught him, and I didn't lower my gaze as I normally would. I hugged my knees tighter. The man's lips curved up on the ends. Don't do that. I felt like he was almost teasing me.

I couldn't explain this strange . . . interest that he seemed to have in me. Maybe he was only trying to get under my skin and terrorize my mind. He'd like that. He seemed like the type to tease and leave you wondering why.

Finally, I looked down at my dirty toes. It was a tough commitment to not look back up at him though. I cleared my mind of anything to do with Sawyer. I wondered where I'd be now if the crash hadn't happened. In my bed, the tv and night light keeping the darkness away. Yeah, right. I'd probably still be at the airport thinking that mommy and daddy would be here any minute to pick me up. They just got caught up, they'll be here.

Strangely, I had to imagine those thoughts. There were no what-if ideas that suddenly came to mind without even trying. It was like there was no what-if. This is where you're suppose to be. I shooed away that tiny voice and rolled over onto my side. I needed sleep. If I sleep, morning will be here before I know it.

It seemed like hours before I was tired enough to close my eyes and not open them every few seconds to see if a monster had appeared. I could feel my subconscious emerging slowly, surrounding my thoughts.

"What are you doing?" A frantic voice tore me from my trance. My eyes snapped open and I sat up quickly, my forehead smarted at this. Boone was standing in front of Sayid, his arms out defensively. I noticed the shiny, black metal of the gun Sawyer had found.

"Standing guard. You heard what they said is out there-"

"You took my gun off me, boy?" Sawyer snapped. Boone's eyes widened.

I stood up quickly, the urge to run away from the camp was frightening. I just wanted to get away. Whatever was about to happen I didn't want to see it.

"Please, you've never even held a gun. He doesn't believe in guns. He goes on marches . . ." Shannon babbled nervously.

"I don't go on marches."

"Give it back to me." Sayid demanded.

"Oh yeah, give it to al jazeera. He'll protect-" Sawyer commented smartly.

"Al Jazeera's a network."

"I'll keep the damn gun." Boone growled.

"We should give it to her." Shannon pointed toward Kate who I was surprised to see had stayed out of the argument.

Everyone turned to her.

"Yeah, Kate should hold the gun." Charlie added smugly.

"Fine with me." Sayid didn't take his eyes off Boone who stayed silent like a kid who knows when he's in trouble. "Well?"

With his tail between his legs, Boone moped over to Kate, handing her the loaded gun. I was left uneasy. Seeing her aim that gun at Sawyer today made me feel sick. Not like nauseous, but dreadful. Maybe I would have felt the same over seeing her point that gun at anyone else, but I doubted it. Those moments when I wasn't sure if Sawyer was going to get shot were some of the scariest since I'd been here. What if it happened again? What if next time, she pulled the trigger?

xXx

The next morning, I was so tired I wouldn't have cared if they'd left me to fend for myself. By the time I'd calm down enough to fall asleep, they sky's color was already lifting from darkness to a dark bluish gray.

There was no arguing between Shannon and Boone, nor any gigantic monsters to alert me. Everyone was quiet. But at least there were no complications to slow us down.

The trek back to the beach was miserably silent, but no one would give in. I walked beside Kate who seemed to only be concerned with following Sayid. I was invisible to her. I'd even expected Charlie to groan about how much he missed bacon or something. But no, nothing.

I couldn't take it anymore. I looked back to search for Sawyer. He wasn't far ahead of the group like he was yesterday. Instead, he'd drifted back from us. It was like he always had to set himself apart. I wasn't sure if he'd say anything to me, but I had a desperate need to focus on something and take my mind off of sleeping.

I stopped in my tracks, letting Shannon walk around me as I waited for Sawyer. He glanced at me when he caught up. I started to walk next to him, quickening my pace to meet his long, effortless strides.

"Already needin' a break, Red?"

"No." I smiled, feeling happy that Sawyer was willing to be sociable.

"You sure? I can go ahead and make a scene." Sawyer teased.

"Shh, keep your voice down." I whispered. I didn't want to draw anyone's attention to me talking to Sawyer.

"So, is there any particular reason that you had my hand in a death grip yesterday?" I watched a smirk curve into his lips.

"What?" I was surprised that he'd even bring that up.

"Were you really that scared, or was that just an excuse to hold my hand?" His smiled grew. My cheeks flushed as I felt the embarrassment creep up on me.

"I panicked." I finally answered, not sure if I was lying or not.

"Sure, sure." Sawyer didn't taunt me anymore. He was quiet for a moment, maybe even deep in thought. Of what, I couldn't say. "Why'd you come out here anyway? You don't look like the tomb raider type."

Because I didn't want to be left out. The voice in my head answered instantly.

"Kate kinda volunteered me." It wasn't really a lie. "What about you?"

At this, Sawyer hesitated. Then, his smile returned and beamed at me when he looked at me.

"Well, after risking my neck to get you out of that seat, I thought it'd be pretty damn stupid to let you die in the jungle."

I felt a fluttering in my chest. I couldn't believe what he'd said. Whether he was being serious or not, it was all I could do to not pass out from the sudden rush of embarrassment.