AN: Thank you all again for the kind feedback. I'm really happy that you guys like what I came up with so far! :)
Well I'm not entirely sure about the on-island-memories... How could they have experienced all this if it never happened? Maybe it's more of a feeling that they are connected...
Soooo... new chapter, slighty longer this time. Hope you like it! Enjoy

Chapter 3 – A new accomplice

"Take her up to the ICU, I'll be there in an hour. Anything happens, page me." Jack said to the nurse as he finally exited the OR.
His body yearning for a hot shower. And a coffee. And something to eat, anything with some sugar in it.
When he came back to the ICU there were two cops waiting for him, asking about his patient's status, her injuries, telling him to be careful around her, that she was dangerous and they would have to handcuff her and place a guard outside her room at all times.
"Doctor Shephard, you have to understand, there is a high risk that this woman might try to run."
This was ridiculous, he thought.
"Listen." Jack was about to lose his patience. "This woman just had major surgery. I don't think that she's gonna do a lot of running for the next few days. She is MY patient and I won't allow the handcuffs." With that he turned around and opened the door to the ICU, leaving the two policemen behind.

"Miss Austen? Miss Austen!" A distant voice seemed to be calling Kate's name again and again.
Her head hurt. That was the first thing she felt when the blankness was slowly replaced by reality, as she regained consciousness.
Kate tried to open her eyes, blinking at the bright light someone seemed to hold just a few inches from her face and then took it away again.
She wanted to speak, to ask where she was, what had happened but when she tried to open her mouth something stopped her.
Starting to panic, tears began forming in her eyes. She wanted to lift her arm, try to remove whatever was keeping her from talking. But a strong warm hand held her arm in place.
"Hey, just relax. You were in an accident but you're going to be okay." she heard the soft male voice explain calmly. Her eyes had finally adjusted to the light so she looked around, eventually finding the source of that voice right next to her. HIM.
"There's a machine helping you breathe at the moment. That's why you can't talk. But I think that we might be able to take out the tube by tomorrow morning. You want to hear what happened?" he asked, sitting down in a chair right next to Kate's bed. She nodded, grimacing at the pain she felt in her head.
"You were brought to the ER, unconscious and already intubated. Your body was about to go into shock when you came in. There was no internal bleeding so it was just a reaction to the trauma of the crash. I had to operate on you since you had fractured a vertebra." he spoke slowly to let her comprehend what he was saying, his eyes never leaving hers.
"Thankfully there was no nerve damage so I just stabilized the bone with a small piece of metal. In a few weeks you won't even feel it's there. You also suffered a concussion, so you're going to have a headache for a few days. And you dislocated your left shoulder pretty badly but it's all back in place now." he trailed off, finally averting his gaze.

"I... I just wanted to tell you this before I went home. I'll be back in the morning to check up on you and maybe we'll take out that tube then." he said, a slight smile playing on his lips as he got up to leave.

'Small world' Kate thought when the handsome stranger had gone and a nurse entered the room.
"Doctor Shephard told me to give you something so you could sleep." the young woman smiled at Kate. She tried to shake her head 'no' but the nurse had already started to inject her with the drug.
"It's alright. You need to rest. Just try and relax."
And then Kate's eyelids got heavy, the noise of the machines around her fading away quickly.

Jack hadn't slept all night. Every time he turned around and tried closing his eyes, his mind kept wandering back to the flight. To the mysterious brunette woman in handcuffs that had somehow ended up on his operating table the very same day he'd met her.
Now he was back at the hospital, on his day off, just to check on her.
'Kate Austen' as he had learned from the two cops who had questioned him after the surgery like operating on that woman had made him her accomplice.

Her chart in hand Jack entered her room, forcing himself not to smile too brightly at the woman who had occupied his mind for the past 15 hours.
'Get it together, Jack' His mind scolded him.
"Morning" he had managed to say in a professional manner.
The young woman looked at him curiously, waiting for him to continue since she was not able to answer.
"Looks like you're doing well, your lab is fine, no signs of infection. I'm going to get my colleague in a minute to take the tube out. Your throat is going to be pretty sore so it'll be best if you don't speak too much for the next few hours." He let his eyes linger on her face a few seconds longer as would have been appropriate, shaking his head when he realized he was staring.
"Uhm... I'll be back in a minute." he smiled sheepishly.

Three hours later Kate had already been allowed to drink some tea. Only small sips of course but it helped with the croakiness.
She hadn't seen the doctor since this morning and not talked to anyone else yet.
Every time she heard footsteps outside in the hallway she hoped he'd come to check up on her.
She'd hold her breath a few seconds, staring at the door, nervously toying with her blanket.
'I'm being ridiculous.' she thought to herself. She should be thinking about a way out of this place. She should be thinking about how to distract the officer outside her room who keeps popping his head in twice an hour to see if she's still there. There was no way out the window, this was at least the fifth floor and climbing with her hurt shoulder was out of the question.
'Better come up with something soon, Kate...'

It was already getting dark outside when Jack decided to stop by Kate's room once more, before heading home.
He'd spent most of the day catching up on patients' records, doing paperwork, to keep his mind occupied and from wandering.
"How are you feeling?" he asked as he entered the small patients room.
"Fine. Thank you." Kate smiled a bitter smile. "You know you really don't have to do this... being nice to me. They are going to transfer me to a prison hospital soon anyway..."
His head fell a little. She was right.
"Yeah, I don't have to do it. But maybe I want to. Maybe... maybe I'll tell them that you are in no condition to be moved anywhere in the near future." He paced back and forth, then walking over to the window, turning around to look at her, smiling.
Even he was not quite sure whether he was kidding or being serious.

"More time for me to bail." Kate said jokingly, silently cursing herself for her answer.
But the tall man in front of her kept smiling.
Like she hadn't just announced that she was about to run from the police as soon as she saw a chance.

"Yeah good luck with that." he laughed. "What are you gonna do? Drug the guy sitting outside your room?"
"Maybe." Kate smiled back at him, thinking that this interaction was the closest to flirting she'd come in three years.

"Then I probably shouldn't tell you that there's several police cars outside, covering almost all the exits." he teased, suspiciously pulling back the drapes and looking outside.

"Almost you say." Kate grinned. "You wanna tell me what they missed? Just so I can start planning my great escape."
"You know as your doctor I need to advise you to postpone the running for a few more days." the handsome man joked, heading for the door, but turning around once more, his hand resting on the handle. "And if I told you they're not guarding the exit of the underground parking... well, you'd probably use the first chance you get." he raised his eyebrows, shaking his head chuckling.
"So I'm not going to tell you that, Miss Austen. Good night." Jack added teasingly as he opened the door and left.

'What's wrong with you, Jack' he asked himself on the drive home.