The sun was now at its highest point in the sky and was beating down on them mercilessly. The ocean water was so warm that it was doing nothing to give them relief from the sun, and they both knew that staying out in the sun and heat for an extended period of time was anything but a good idea. So after jumping off of the cliff a few times each to distract themselves from the fact that they were stranded, they grabbed their jeans and shirts and headed back into the forest to the waterfall to get something to drink and cool themselves down.
"How deep do you think it is?" Greg asked, breaking the silence that had settled upon them since they had left the beach.
Nick shrugged. "No clue, couple feet probably. Let's find out."
He sat on the rocky ledge of the pool and then swung his legs over the side. He pushed off against the rocks and let himself fall into the water. His feet his the sandy bottom as he stood, the water coming up a little more than waist high. Greg wasn't far behind him, and after he settled into the water the pair started walking slowly through the water towards the waterfall. The depth of the pool remained roughly the same throughout as they crossed over until they were a foot from where the water crashed down in front of them.
"It looks like this was man made," Greg said as he stared up at the white water.
Nick nodded in agreement. "I've never seen anything like this. We don't have too many of these in Vegas, or back in Texas," he joked. Nick then proceeded to step forward a few more steps until the cold water was pounding over him, finally giving some relief from the sun and heat.
After watching the white water crash over Nick for a few seconds, Greg decided to follow suit. The pressure from the water was intense, but it felt good to wash the sweat and salt from his body and cool down. After running his hands through his hair a few times, Nick stepped back out from under the waterfall and shook the water from his face. He frowned when he noticed that Greg wasn't at his side anymore or under the water. He turned around and looked behind him, but he wasn't sitting on the edge of the pool either. With only one place left for him to be, Nick stepped through the water until he was on the other side, where he found Greg.
"What are you doing?" Nick asked.
Greg shrugged. "Just curious," he replied. "Have you ever seen Jurassic Park, the second one?" he asked with a small amused smile.
Nick was surprised at Greg's question until he realized what he was talking about. "Oh, yeah. When they're behind the waterfall and the T-Rex comes and eats one of the guys."
Greg nodded, and then his smile began to falter. "We should go find that shelter you mentioned earlier."
Nick laughed slightly and shook his head at the other man. The pair got out of the pool, collected their clothes, and headed back towards the beach. As they crossed onto the sand, Greg noticed a small overhang at the side of the cliffs they were now facing. It made for a small cave like covering, completely cut off from the water and far enough from the waves that it wouldn't become submerged during high tide.
"That could work," he said, pointing it out to Nick. They walked over to it and cautiously walked inside. It was about fifteen feet long, six feet across and eight feet high; pretty much the perfect size. "The raft will definitely fit in here, and if we put it all the way at the back we should be out of reach of any storms or anything."
Nick nodded in agreement. "Yeah, this will definitely work," he said. He then turned to Greg with a little smirk. "You weren't a boy scout when you were a kid, were you?"
Greg frowned. "No, not exactly. I wasn't really into the whole group dynamic social thing when I was a kid. I read a lot, which is how I got to be so smart," he said with a smirk.
Nick rolled his eyes, but smiled slightly. "So I take it you don't know how to make a fire."
"That would be a negative. Do you?"
"Not really," he replied with a sigh. "I went camping a few times, but my dad always brought a lighter. My brother and I never sat still long enough to teach us how to make a fire, if he even knows how."
"Maybe there's matches in the raft," Greg offered. "Those things almost always have first aid kits and emergency water a food, maybe there's matches too."
With that they headed back onto the beach and over to the raft. Nick climbed in while Greg stood there, waiting anxiously. Nick found the first aid kid zipped securely into the side. It was a decent size, giving them hope that there would be useful supplies inside. Nick quickly opened it, finding the usual first aid components of band aids, gauze, antibiotic ointment, and a silver emergency blanket. There was also two granola bars and a bottle of water along with scissors and a flashlight. After sifting through all of the contents, Nick sighed in disappointment and looked up at Greg.
Greg shrugged nonchalantly. "Guess we'll just have to make our own fire," he said. "It can't be too hard."
An hour later, Greg was cursing himself for uttering those words. Both Nick and Greg had been trying to start a friction based fire. Being very well educated scientists, figuring out how to do it without ever having done it before wasn't hard. They each found a branch to use as a board and a stick to use as a starter. They gathered tinder and hollowed out a space in the board with the scissors. Then they began scratching and spinning the stick on the dry grass and leaves that they were using, but so far, to no avail. They were both sweating despite being hidden from the sun in their newly found cave. They were shielded from the sun, but it was still hot enough in there to cause severe discomfort. After failing for what had to have been the thousandth time, Nick groaned in frustration and threw his stick and board.
"This is never going to work," he said in defeat.
"Of course it won't if you just give up," Greg replied with heavy sarcasm. "Tom Hanks did it, so can we."
Nick rolled his eyes at the younger man. "That was a movie Greg. You watch way too much television. You gotta get out more."
Greg was ignoring Nick's rant and focused all of his attention on making this damn fire. His arms were sore and he was starting to feel lightheaded from the heat, but he continued to spin the stick as hard as he could. His muscles burned, screaming at him to stop, but he wouldn't. He pressed the stick against the board as hard as he could, and when he saw a spark he thought he was imagining things until Nick shot over to his side with a huge smile on his face.
"It worked!" he exclaimed.
Greg dropped the stick and leaned over the small flame, blowing on it softly as Nick added more tinder. Soon enough, the small spark grew into a decent sized fire fueled by wood and grass recovered from the forest. When the fire was going strong enough to sustain itself, Greg and Nick stood back and marveled at what had come out of it.
"Way to go man," Nick said, grabbing Greg's shoulder and squeezing it firmly. "This is awesome."
"We should use it to make a fire on the beach, a signal fire," Greg thought out loud.
Nick was already a step ahead of him. He went back into the forest and came out with as much wood, leaves and grass as he could carry. He made it into a pile on the beach next to their SOS sign before going back into the forest and getting another armful. Greg joined in, and after a few trips each they had enough to make a decent sized bonfire. They used a branch with leaves on the end to transfer the fire from inside the cave to light the bonfire. It took more patience and careful shielding from the sea breeze, but they were finally able to get all of the tinder to catch and the flames that erupted in front of them sent a smoke signal up high into the sky.
"Someone is definitely going to see that," Greg said, staring up at the smoke with a huge smile on his face.
"Oh yeah," Nick agreed. "We're going to be fine G. As long as we don't panic, stay out of the sun as much as we can, and keep these fires going, we're going to be fine."
"Yeah," Greg replied, "let's do that whole staying out of the sun thing. I feel like I'm about to pass out."
Nick followed Greg back into the cave, where the younger man sat down on the cool sand and rested his bare back up against the rock wall. He closed his eyes and rested his head in his hands for a few moments before he felt Nick nudge him with something. He opened his eyes and saw the Texan reaching out with the bottle of water in his hand.
"We should save that," Greg said, shaking his head.
"What difference does it make?" Nick asked. "We have all the water we need from the waterfall. We can fill this up whenever we want, it's just one bottle." He didn't want to outright admit it, but he was worried about Greg. The bruise on his head was showing more clearly now, and it was clear it was affecting him. "Just drink it, you need it," he added, forcing the open bottle into Greg's hand.
"Thanks," Greg replied as he took a long drink from the bottle before handing it back to Nick. The older man took a quick drink before giving the rest back to Greg. "What do we do now?"
"I don't know," Nick replied. "Get some more food and rest I guess. There's really nothing else for us to do."
"Except wait," Greg added, closing his eyes again. Nick watched him closely to make sure he wasn't going to pass out. He was quiet for a few minutes before he spoke again. "Waiting is always the worst whenever something happens."
"What do you mean?" Nick asked.
"Like when you were kidnapped. Waiting to find out if Gordon was going to tell us where you were or not was the worst feeling ever. And then we had to wait longer to find you and didn't know if you were going to be dead or alive." Nick didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything. "And then Sara got kidnapped too, waiting to find her was just as bad. And then you were shot. Then blown up. Then blown up again. All those times I remember Brass or Catherine telling me what happened, and then I had to wait to find out if you were going to die or not. It really kind of sucked."
"It wasn't a cake walk when you got attacked by that gang either," Nick said softly. Greg opened his eyes and looked over at Nick, who was still watching him intently. "I remember processing the scene with Warrick. Some of the guys that had helped do it were hanging around the crime scene, taunting us. I punched the head guy, that 'Pig' idiot because he wouldn't stop talking about what they had done to you."
Greg shook his head slowly. "I didn't know that."
Nick laughed humorlessly. "I should have shot him."
Greg closed his eyes again, but their conversation still wasn't over. "I don't know if I ever told you after any of it happened, but I'm glad nothing bad ever happened to you. It wouldn't be the same without you around to annoy me all the time."
Again, Nick was at a loss for words. Maybe it was their current predicament that was bringing this about, but him and Greg had never had this type of conversation with one another before. They were good friends and hung out outside of work and all that, but they weren't the type of friends to have heart to heart talks like this. Neither one would admit it, but they were both glad that they were apparently on their way to becoming that type of friends.
"Thanks G," Nick replied, feeling like he had to say something.
But Greg made no indication that he had heard Nick's response. He hadn't fallen asleep yet, but Nick guessed that his head was hurting him enough at this point that he was content to sit in the cool darkness of the cave and rest for a while. After about an hour or so, most of which Greg did in fact sleep while Nick tried to handle all of the racing thoughts scattering his brain, Greg opened his eyes again and looked over at Nick.
"Do you really think someone is going to find us?" he asked.
Nick jumped slightly at the sudden voice. All he had heard for the last hour was the calming sound of the waves crashing into the shore and the rustle of the palm trees from the breeze. He was so lost in thought that he hadn't even realized that Greg was awake.
"Yeah, I do," he replied. "I bet Russell and Finn are already fighting over who gets to head the search team."
Greg smiled at the thought. "They would have killed each other by now if they were in our position."
They fell into a general conversation about their team and friends back in Vegas and how each of them would react in their current situation. They both agreed that Morgan and Hodges would be the most interesting pair to see stuck on this island and imagined Morgan literally drawing a line in the sand to separate herself from the trace technician. They spent the rest of the day gathering as much food as they could and staying around the waterfall so that they could be sure to drink as much water as possible to stay well hydrated. They collected plenty of wood to make sure that the bonfire on the beach would last through the night as well as being able to maintain the fire in the cave for warmth. The sun began to set while they were still in the forest, so they headed back to the cave before total darkness settled on the island. They nestled the raft the farthest back in the cave that they could and depending on the fire for light as opposed to wasting the battery of the flashlight. After eating some more fruit, and both being utterly exhausted, there was nothing left for them to do other than try and get some sleep.
The raft was more than big enough to accommodate both of them comfortably, and yet they settled into it relatively close to one another. Not close enough that they were touching, but close enough so that if one of them moved even slightly, the other definitely felt it more than just from the raft shifting. With the silver emergency blanket stretched over both of them to make sure they stayed warm enough overnight, they both laid completely still in the darkness and quiet of the cave, watching the light cast by the fire dancing on the dark ceiling above them.
"Greg?" Nick asked quietly, unsure if the other man had fallen asleep or not yet.
"Yeah?" Greg replied instantly. He was relieved that Nick was also apparently unable to fall asleep. The events of their first day had kept them fairly distracted from the reality of their situation; but now that night had settled over the island and they were about to sleep in a raft in a cave, the realization was setting in, and it was a very unsettling realization at that.
"I know our situation could technically be worse, but I'm glad I'm not alone here. I'm glad you got stuck here with me," Nick said, his Texan accent thick and highlighting his sincerity.
Greg was glad that it was so dark in the cave so that Nick couldn't see how widely he was smiling at what the other man had just said. "You're welcome," he replied coolly, trying not to act like an excited dorky little kid who gets to hang out with the cooler popular kid.
Nick smiled himself as he finally closed his eyes. He found it comforting to be able to sense Greg's warm body next to his, easing the tension of their situation. He would have been surprised to learn that Greg felt the same way; surprised as well as excited.